Friday 6th February 2009
My 2009 local competition season is finally underway, so it's about time I put up an update on my progress since December last year. It's been a busy January!Physical Fitness
I'm quite happy with how my physical conditioning is going. Since my last update on 30 December 2008, I've dropped another 5½ pounds of bodyfat with no muscle loss, and brought my bodyweight down to 173 pounds (78.5kg). I'd estimate I'm now around the 10-12% bodyfat level, which is a big difference from where I started back in January 2008 (around 95kg and 25%+ bodyfat).I'm not quite managing my New Year's resolution of 2 x 2 hour training sessions a day, 5-6 days a week, but I'm not doing too badly either. I'm currently doing 3 - 3½ hours of training 4-5 times a week, and at least 2 hours a day 1-2 days a week, with a rest day thrown in once a week or so. Bottom line is, I'm much fitter and faster than a year ago, without any problems with mental or physical burnout. I can't complain about that!
On-Table Training
I'm getting more on table training now that my competition season has begun, which is helping me get the rust off my match play. I'm still sticking to basically simple footwork and technique drills in my training - I'm nowhere near ready to move to anything too complex yet. That said, I'm quite happy with my progress in developing a very heavy long distance chop with my inverted rubber - I'm just beginning to blend this new stroke into my matches with promising results.I'm maintaining my focus on improving my defensive skills that I use for my core game, and based on my latest match results I think this strategy is paying off. More on this below.
Mental Training
I've been running my Directive Affirmations on a regular basis, and doing some mental visualization of matchplay when doing my aerobic training, but I think I could still do much more in this area. It's funny how I know mental training is important but I still tend to overlook it when it comes time to actually allocate time for training. Slow learner, that's me!Competition
Finally, my local competition has started, with my first pennant match taking place this week, and I'm currently in the middle of the first tournament of the year.I wasn't really pushed in my pennants, but I had a good workout last night in the Over 30 Mens Singles. I managed to win the event, defeating my opponents 3-1 in the semifinal, and 3-2 in the final. My concentration was a little up and down, which is to be expected so early in the season, but I was quite pleased with how my tactical plan worked out. Although I still have a long way to go in mastering a heavy chop against loop, even with the mistakes I was making, the addition of a heavy backspin chop really made the rest of my game more effective. So while there is plenty of room for improvement in blending this new stroke into my game, my early results seem to confirm that I'm on the right track, which is a relief!
And of course, being a great deal fitter and faster, I'm now able to return a lot more balls and cover a wider defensive area, and maintain my level of intensity throughout the whole match. After losing the first two games of the final 9-11, I still felt fresh, and once I decided to try to vary the spin on my chops more, I was able to get on top to win the next 3 games 11-5, 11-3, 11-5 (although not without some lucky net balls in the last game, to be honest). But I really did feel quite comfortable out there - I just need to keep the ball a bit lower when trying to chop heavy.