The Impact of Eye-closed and Weighted Multi-ball Training on the Improvement of the Stroke Effect of Adolescent Table Tennis Players.

This paper investigated the impact of eye-closed and weighted training (EWMT) on the stroke effect of adolescent table tennis players. Forty-eight adolescent table tennis players were randomly selected from the China Table Tennis College and were divided into two groups as 1) the experimental group (EG, n = 24) in which they engaged in multi-ball exercise with eye-closed and weighted swing for 10 weeks, and 2) the control group (CG, n = 24) in which they received a normal training without eye-closed and weighted swing intervention. The stroke effect was assessed by three outcome measures: accuracy, stability, and ball speed. Results showed that 1) both the traditional training method and EWMT can improve the stroke effect of adolescent table tennis players. 2) In terms of accuracy, the number of stroke in the corner area was significantly different between EG and CG after the experiment (p = 0.022, p < 0.001, respectively). 3) In terms of stroke stability, there was a significant difference in the number of net ball strokes between EG and CG after the experiment (p = 0.014). 4) In terms of ball speed, there was no significant difference between EG and CG after the experiment (p = 0.871). 5) After EWMT, the stroke stability of backspin had more significant improvement than that of topspin. Thus, compared with the traditional training method, the EWMT method can improve the stroke effect of adolescent table tennis players in terms of accuracy and stability more significantly; the EWMT method can improve the stroke effect of backspin more significantly than that of topspin in terms of stability.