Monitoring effort during increasing levels of training exercises in table tennis

Observing an elite table tennis player during matches gives an impression of ease; this means that all difficulties inherent in his/her sport (biomechanical, bio-energetic, bioinformational and psychological constraints) seem to disappear. Skilful behaviour (Guthrie, 1952), deriving from a long and particularly hard training is defined by a high level of performance (the player is sure to reach his goal) and of efficiency (i.e., the relation between the obtained level of performance and what it costs to get it). Despite this, a review of texts published on motor learning leads to an astonishing remark “leaving aside research works on automatic behaviour, there are very few data at the moment, combining efficiency, absence of effort, optimisation, etc., with progress in training” (Famose, 1990, p. 181).