L’effet de levier (the lever’s effect) is known in the financing domain as any technique targeting to multiply gains and losses. No doubt that is a good metaphor of the Law of Lever by Archimedes who stated ‘Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth’. A lever can be a power’s multiplier element based on the moment of inertia.
But, hold on, we were supposed talking about table tennis here, isn’t it? In a way there is somehow a link between the Law of Lever and what we do to perform an optimal stroke in table tennis. Let’s model our racket in 2 axes: one transversal (D1) and other longitudinal (D2).
Then make yourself the following question: which of these 2 axes will provide a bigger moment of inertia? The answer comes straightforward, the longitudinal one with a longer size is the axe where we can get more torque.
And how does it apply to the execution of the different strokes in table tennis? In a quite particular way. In fact, if you reflect on that, the starting position before executing a stroke is with your arm bent up, your forearm is then aligned on the longitudinal axe of your racket. During the stroke’s execution we have to open our arm using our elbow and shoulder to transform the arm itself into another lever. However the key point is that, to produce the maximum power with minimum effort, our forearm will always kept aligned with the longitudinal axe of the racket during all the execution of the stroke. In a certain way what this means is that, in a topspin stroke, we try to slide the ball over the longest path on the rubber to produce maximal effect. Following this principle, the closer the ball’s path to the longitudinal axe the better. Of course we end up describing a diagonal path on the surface of the rubber.
We also rely on the longitudinal axe when we block a top spin. This is made evident when we perform a backhand block where our forearm is set almost completely perpendicular to the table. On the forehand block this tendency is less stressed as otherwise we would need to put our arm stuck to our body (what would make us lose performance in our arm’s lever 😉
Hope you have enjoyed this curious association of ideas. As I used to say, I’m just a table tennis amateur looking for little and simple tricks that help to improve my game, nothing more. So, please, do not take this kind of reflections too seriously.
Wise Table Tennis 