Can this hurt my TT game?

I discovered a gym at the beginning of the year that often has strength and fitness competitions. I took a couple of weeks to train for their "Winter Games." In my 3 events, I won 2 golds and 1 silver for my age division (you may have just guessed they were more strength than fitness). I haven't played TT for a few weeks and it seems this type of lifting could be harmful to my touch. I'll find out next week. 

Edited by heavyspin - 02/22/2015 at 10:54am

I think it's very good and necessary, just make sure to lift with the right technique, otherwise the injuries will come.. 

Like Sedis said, you need to make sure you give yourself enough time to recover. Hopefully you aren't doing these competitions within at least 48 hours of any important table tennis matches. Once you feel your muscular system is running at normal capacity and you have come out uninjured then that's great and will help your overall athleticism.

As far as general weightlifting goes, go ahead and strengthen all of your muscles EXCEPT the upper trapezius muscles. This means NO SHRUGS! I'm writing this for anyone who plays table tennis and reads this. Increasing the size of your upper traps will limit the speed, mobility, and flexibility of your arms which is counter-productive to table tennis. Of course, high level body building and extremely heavy bulking isn't good either but I think that one probably goes without saying. Other than that, weightlifting will help in most sports.