From Greg Letts,
Your Guide to Table Tennis / Ping-Pong.
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!

Are you an older table tennis player who suffers from bad knees, hips or ankles? Do you have to limit your ping-pong training because of your aches and pains? As a serious table tennis player who is fast approaching 40 (in 2010), I have my share of physical problems too - including sore knees and aching legs from the pounding of training. And since I'm carrying around 30 pounds or so of extra weight at the time of writing, I have been finding it difficult to do the amount of training (both on table and off table) that I need to improve my game and help me drop weight.

In this article, I want to share a surprisingly simple recent addition to my training program that has enabled me to go from struggling to do more than an hour a day of training due to aches and pains and burnout, to being able to aerobically train for up to an extra hour and a half each day, while still having fresher legs for my on table play, and actually looking forward to training.

The big secret? Walking.

What a gyp! you might be thinking. Everybody walks - what's so special about that? Here's the deal.

• First of all, it's not a gentle walk around the park. I'm walking in my large living room, moving forward, back and side to side quickly. Every now and then I'll mimic my shuffle step footwork or crossover footwork, but taking care to always have one foot on the ground, instead of jumping. I also involve my upper body, making sure I'm swinging my arms as I walk, or just moving my arms around or punching to the beat of the music on my iPod. That's why I don't do this outside, I probably would look very strange to any spectators watching me walk/dance/punch around!

• By walking instead of jumping around, I'm greatly reducing the amount of impact that my legs have to deal with. This means that I can easily get through a 1½ hour session in the morning and still go on the table in the evening with fairly fresh legs.

• Another nice plus is that walking and performing footwork exercises in this manner doesn't make my legs ache, so I find it much easier to stay motivated for an evening training session. And when I start each day my morning session isn't something I dread, since I know it's something I can handle that won't make my body hurt!

Now you may well be wondering whether walking like this is really an aerobic activity. I can assure you that it truly is. By simply walking quickly and moving my arms around to the beat of the music, I can easily maintain a heart rate of 140+ beats per minute - well into my aerobic training zone that I used to aim for when doing aerobics - but without any of the nasty pounding of my joints!

By the way, some of you may also be wondering why I don't use an exercise bike or rowing machine instead. Well, I do use an exercise bike from time to time as well, but I find about 45 minutes is all my backside can handle! And from my readers' point of view, walking around is much cheaper than buying an exercise bike or rowing machine.

As I get fitter and lose more of the extra weight I'm carrying, I'll probably be able to increase the amount of on table training I can perform. But in the meantime, the addition of walking aerobics has allowed me to go from training around 1 to 1½ hours a day to training 2½ to 3 hours per day - with less aches and pains and a much more positive feeling about doing the training. That's got to be good, doesn't it? So if you are an older player who's also struggling with sore legs, I can personally recommend giving walking a go.

Want to find out more about walking for fun, health and fitness? Why not visit the About.com Walking website?