By Larry Hodges, Member of US Table Tennis Hall of Fame, www.tabletenniscoaching.com/blog

The statement, “Whoever works hardest becomes the best” is often true, but the reality is that it sometimes is not. To give an obvious example, suppose there’s a ten-year-old and a sixty-year-old of about the same level. Suppose they both train hard for five years, but the older player trains a little harder. Do you think he’ll end up better? Probably not.

And like it or now, often a lazy player with seeming talent improves faster than his harder-working peers – at the start. In the long run, assuming similar physical attributes, the harder-working player almost always comes out ahead if he trains intelligently.

And hard work often doesn’t pay off if the work isn’t done intelligently. That’s a reason to work with a coach, so he can guide you into intelligent practice. (Here’s my tip, Deliberate Practice in Table Tennis. Or Google “Deliberate Practice” for more many articles on this. Hard Work + Deliberate Practice = Reaching Your Potential.)

But here’s the key thing for players. If you aren’t sure your hard work will pay off, it’s hard to really put your heart into it, and you likely won’t improve as fast as you could. But if you truly convince yourself that the hardest-working player will come out ahead, then you are halfway toward becoming the hardest-working player, and thereby maximizing your own improvement. And THAT is key to maximizing your success.

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