Hi Bobv,
Firstly, great to hear you are implementing all the practice this is great! Also, awesome you play many other sports as this will give you a lot of good fundamental skills to transfer across to table tennis. Okay you have asked a great question and i think me and Tom should make a video on this. What I would suggest is it sounds like you have the mechanics to rotate well etc due to tennis and the other sports, so off the table training isn’t needed here. I think do simple table tennis drills to start with.
1) Forehand topspin into one position. Only use your legs and body to generate the pace into the shot. Avoid using to much arm. Don’t worry if you make mistakes etc thats all part of the learning process. Really focus on transferring your legs, torso, shoulders and then arm coming into the shot at the very last minute.
2) Now do this same drill but with footwork. So one wide forehand and then a forehand from the middle and repeat. This exercise will help you practice transferring into the ball with your weight whilst you are on the move.
3) Then practice a simple drill such as 1 backhand and 1 forehand into your opponents backhand block. During this focus on the rotation and weight transfer only, again don’t worry to much about using your arm. Relax and practice this weight transfer process.
4) Now you have worked on the weight transfer part, work on integrating it with your arm and snap into the ball like a whipping action.
A few key things I find players improve with weight transfer is creating a good base. Bend the knees and have your feet spread out quite wide, look at Timo Boll for an example of this. Now you are low, you can load your weight into your right leg, turn the torso, core, and shoulders and rotate into the ball landing in your left lg. This is for right handed players. Watch this video here: https://tabletennisdailyacademy.com/videos/how-to-weight-transfer-effectively/
What equipment are you using? Sometimes players with fast bats cannot utilise their weight transfer effectively because the bat is to fast, so they over compensate by just using their arm.
Hope this helps 🙂
Dan
