Injury risks, rec rooms & barriers

Please read the disclaimer page first if you can.

There are few places such as DFWTT in Dallas area that setup barriers individually for each table for each weekly sessions inside multi-purpose gyms (not rec rooms) but it is usually done by the players or club owners. (I have done this for years as a club owner or just a club member volunteering).

Please read an associted important updat to this webpage at another webpage called

Divider screen default settings and old barriers

This is the ideal situation to minimize injury but it would be difficult to do this in half gym for more than 8 tables (in Liberty) or a slightly larger TMRC for 12 tables.

But the situation is completely different for rec rooms. Because there is no need to setup & take down table every week.

But yet almost no rec center barriers table individually when they have only like 3 or 2 or 1 table. This absolutely makes no sense to me.

But it is easier to understand once you see how the rec centers view table tennis. This is mostly a problem of perception. Rec Centers do not view table tennis as an athletic (Olympic) sport where players are moving at maximum bursts of speeds even at the lowest levels. And this creates a huge injury risk if the table tennis is table is mixed with other activities such as pool, foosball or people just sitting in chairs or tables in close proximity.

But the problem can actually be much worse for casual ping pong hackers than formal competitive table tennis players? Why? Because table tennis players may have at least some basic footwork training and somewhat controlled movements (even if not as graceful as professional table tennis players).

But casual ping pong hackers could still be very fast athletically but not trained & coordinate and clumsy in their movements, still at very high speeds. The risks of injury & collisions is therefore actually higher for a ping pong hacker compared to a table tennis players.

Yet rec centers treat table tennis just the same as other activities in rec rooms such as foosball or air hockey where players are stationary. In pool players do move around but not running fast like a ping pong hacker, So the risk of collisions between a table tennis player and from other activities is actually quite high.

The problem is much worse when you have more than one table tennis table in the rec room especially if they sit very close like at the rec room in Carpenter Park Rec. Center. The risk of injury due to high speed collisions from nearby tables is the highest between players from nearby tables. The problem is much worse when both tables are playing doubles which happens a lot at Carpenter Park Rec Center.

This is why it is of absolute maximum importance to barrier tables individually in rec rooms. I was actually told by Plano Rec. that budget constraints do not allow them to spend money for barriers. This is absolutely insane to me because one serious accident can result not just financial issues (insurance may not fully cover everything) but also very bad public perception.

Even more crazy is the fact these issues at all 3 rec centers (TMRC, Liberty & Oak Point) can be corrected in less than 30 minutes