OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I was thinking of buying a butterfly table tennis table along with a mid range robot for practice at home.I have been training in table tennis with a coach for around 5 months Do you think it is worth it,?
Thank you.

Practicing regularly with a mid range robot (with varying spins and speeds) has definitely improved my game. It helped build muscle memory for my forehand and backhand loops. Definitely worth it.

How much space do you have?

Iskandar

The robot will teach you nothing but receive rotation. A better retunboard for learning a strong topspin is cheaper than a robot. And the second man is best on the other side of the table. It is always worth having a table but you have to have a man for it, because the robot really gets bored and hardly anything.

Robots have their uses. See some of Brett's videos about how he has people practice basic shots with robots to fix technique issues. And you can program them to oscillate for drills (good exercise and to work on footwork). A good multiball feeder would ALWAYS be better, but that's not something a lot of us have access to, and they're expensive..

I'd argue that robots are better in a club setting - it'd get a lot more use by a lot more people, and can be used as part of organized coaching. What happens to a lot of home robots is that people use them for a few weeks and then they gather dust after that.

Iskandar