Studies of have shown that the discs in your spine are swollen up to twice the normal size when you first wake up in the morning.  With light activity, the swelling reduces after about 2 hours.  Before you set your alarm clock next Saturday morning before that tournament, consider adding those 2 hours to help your back reach its peak potential:
 
Wake up at 6am
Light walk, breakfast, stretching, light jog 6am-8am
Start practice on the table 8am
First tournament match 9am
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Old, young, male, female, fat, skinny…  everyone wants to perform well in their first tournament.  For many players the first tournament will be a make or break event.  The first tournament can spark a desire to be the best or can douse the flame of improvement.  When a student of mine is preparing for his first tournament, I try to have him focus on 2 primary elements:  Control and Spin.
 

 
 
 
 
 
In this article, I’m going to classify all table tennis rubbers into one of three basic categories.
 
 
Grippy Inverted Rubbers
What you see is what you get.  If your opponent strokes the ball with a topspin stroke, the ball will be topspin to some degree or another.  Same principle applies to backspin or sidespin.
 
 
Recreational Rubbers, Short Pips, and Long Pips with Grip

 
 
By Larry Thoman 
General Manager of Newgy Industries