Badminton Fitness – An Introduction

In badminton, fitness is paramount. Aside from having a good coach, fitness is probably the best way to improve your overall game. When considering fitness, many people think of cardiovascular fitness. This is the ability to continue playing without fatiguing. I mentioned this in my post on general things to do to improve your game. However, badminton fitness incorporates more than just endurance.

Components of Fitness

When I sat my PE GCSEs all those years ago, there were 5 components of fitness. On researching this topic, now there’s anywhere between five and twenty!  

For the purposes of the typical amateur player, I believe there’s only five you really need to focus on to improve your overall badminton fitness.

1. Cardiovascular Endurance – The ability of the heart and lungs to provide oxygen to the body. 
2. Stamina – The ability of the body to produce energy at maximum output for a period of time.
3. Strength – The maximum ability of the muscles to exert force against a resistance.
4. Power – The ability of the muscles to produce force in a short amount of time
5. Flexibility – Ability to move joints through a full range of motion

Luckily, most of the above are interdependent. For example, strength compliments power. This will become more apparent in later posts on this topic.

The reason I have chosen to focus on these components, in particular, is for a few reasons.

1. They are the most accessible. Most people have access to a pair of running shoes and their body weight. You don’t always need access to a gym!

2. Remaining components not listed are satisfied to some degree by the above five components. For example, agility and speed will be influenced by power.

3. Biggest impact. These five components have the most potential to significantly improve your game.

Badminton Specific Training

When working on each of these components, you should ensure you’re training in a way which compliments your actions on the court.

For example, if you only ran excessive distances at a slow pace it might help improve endurance, but it is not reflective of the speed and explosiveness of the sport itself. Therefore it will have a positive but limited effect on your game.

However, if you supplement these runs with high-intensity activity, then you are starting to incorporate more of the demands of badminton into your off-court training.

Each fitness component should be treated equally, although of course there are preferences for one over the other. For example, most men tend to edge towards strength training more than cardiovascular training. In fact, it’s the components you don’t like that perhaps you should focus more on! However, all are important equally in order to improve your game as a whole.

In future posts, we will discuss further the importance of each component and what you can do to work on each component to get the best out of your game.

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