Tracking aerobic and anaerobic fitness in table tennis players with various athletic levels: A two-year study

There is a lack of research conducted to examine the over-time changes in aerobic and anaerobic fitness in table tennis (TT) players with various athletic levels. In order to fill the gap in knowledge, this study was to assess physiological responses to the graded exercise test in Level-1 collegiate, Level-2 collegiate, and U16-U18 TT players and to track their performance for one year. Forty-eight well-trained TT players participated in this study. The competitive TT-specific aerobic test (CTTSAT) was conducted to assess their fitness, and data were collected to represent their aerobic fitness (i.e., total testing time and heart rate recovery) and anaerobic fitness (i.e., blood lactate clearance). Mixed-effects models were conducted to examine the main effects of time and group and the time-by-group interaction on all indicators while controlling for sex. There was a significant main effect of time on the total testing time (estimate = 243.04, SE = 57.30, p < 0.001), indicating that TT players improved their performance on the CTTSAT test over time. Neither the main effect of group nor the interaction of time by group was found on all outcomes. Despite similar physiological responses to the CTTSAT, well-trained TT players with various athletic levels could continuously improve aerobic fitness. Nevertheless, our findings imply a potential time-tactic or time-technique trade-off which needs to be further tested.