Table tennis is one of the fastest ball sports in the world. During the game, players experience extreme exertion when performing repetitve forceful movements, that can eventually lead to overuse injuries. Although the whole body is working when playing, the most susceptible area for the development of injuries is shoulder girlde, as proven by past researches.
The shoulder girdle consists of the glenohumeral, scapulothoracic, acromioclavicular and sternoclavicular joints. Passive stability is provided by the ligaments, while active stability is provided by noumerous skeletal muscles. The most susceptible to injury are the rotator cuff muscles, which ensure that the head of the humerus is in good contact with the glenoid fossa.
Compared to other racquet sports, table tennis rarley contains movements above the level of the head. This position is one of the most critical ones, because the glenohumeral joint is the least stable and most prone to injury. Despite this, shoulder girdle injuries in table tennis are very similar to those in major racket sports but also the other racket sports such as padel, pickelball, racquetball and others. The most common injuries are impingement syndrome, rotator cuff tendinopathy and glenohumeral internal rotation deficit.
It's not yet fully known, why similar injuries also occur in table tennis, but the authors belive the main cause are short, abrupt and rapid movements, particularly in forehand strokes with no swing (follow up) phase. This can cause microtrauma in tendons and muscles which can often lead to injury.
The shoulder girdle is the most frequently injured area in table tennis. Therefore in our master's thesis, with the help of collected data, we created a preventive exercise programme that could be implemented in training process. The program consists of strength, spinal flexibility and muscle flexibility exercises that are suitable for all table tennis players, and in terms of equipment used, it is financially accesible to players and clubs. In the future, it would be necessary to implement this program in to training regime to see if it is effective or if it still needs further improvement.
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