Ah, here we are again, looking up home exercises for badminton. A new lockdown in the UK has closed down badminton yet again. So time to reflect on how we can maintain our fitness for the court again for the next month! If you haven’t come out of lockdown yet, or even if you have and are able to play, these exercises will still absolutely benefit your game.
You don’t need a gym to be fit for badminton. In fact, you can get an amazing workout at home which is just as good as what you would perform in the gym. You might not be able to do any on-court exercises but you can certainly improve your fitness at home. These home exercises for badminton provide a great workout, and helps to imporve your performance on the court!
Best Home Exercises For Badminton
Burpees
Burpees are a great total body exercise and one that is great for targeting your anaerobic fitness. The reason it’s mainly anaerobic is that it requires energy very rapidly. Due to its demandeing nature, it’s difficult to continue to do this exercise for extended periods of time.
This exercise works the upper and lower body as well as the core. Therefore it’s a really effective movement. Because so many muscles are working at once, the heart and lungs really have to get involved to provide oxygen to the muscles. It also helps with the coordination of total body movement – an important aspect of badminton. There’s also a secondary benefit to your aerobic fitness.
In badminton terms, this makes it a great exercise to help improve your explosive movement on the court – including jump smashes and particularly beneficial to doubles – where extended period of explosive activity occurs rapidly within the rally.
Skipping/Jump Rope
One of the most effective aerobic exercises you can do. All it requires is a skipping rope and a bit of open space. This could be your living room, garden or balcony (if it’s big enough).
Skipping is a great conditioning exercise which effectively benefits the cardiovascular system. Like burpees, it’s a total body workout, targeting the lower body and core predominantly.
In terms of badminton, it’s great for coordination as well as developing speed on the court as it’s a plyometric exercise. However, one drawback would be that it’s quite high impact as its constant jumping. Therefore if you have weaker knees, this might not be the best option.
Just getting into skipping, it does require a little technique. Don’t aim for time initially, aim for a number of skips instead. It’s important to be consistent before you can reap the benefits of this exercise. Therefore it might be a better approach to initially skip for a number of repetitions before moving onto skipping for time. You’ll find you might not be able to skip for long at first – but gradually build yourself up and you’ll be reaping the benefits in no time!
There’s also a lot of variations that can be done with skipping including double jumps, one legged hops and side to side jumps.
It can also be used for anerobic purposes, simply by increasing the intensity and speed at which you perform the exercise!
Press Ups
As far as upper body exercises go, the classic push up is hard to beat! While pull ups are a strong competitor, you need no equipment to do a push up, which is why I included here.
The push up is predominantly a strength and power based body weight exercise. The gym equivalent is the bench press. As this exercise improves these fitness elements, it translates into being able to generate more power in your attacking shots. It also helps to strengthen the chest, shoulder, arms and core – aiding in injury prevention.
An example of strength training using push-ups is to really slow down the movement. This puts the muscles under tension for a longer period. Meanwhile, if you wanted to focus on power, explosive pushups are the way to go. This could be performing them as fast as possible, or even plyometric pushups, in which you push your body off the ground.
Many people feel that push-ups are too easy to be effective. But what’s great about the push up is that there are many variations. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself on strength exercises (safely!), they’re a vital part of injury prevention as well as fitness.
Jump Squats
If you wanted to improve your vertical jump for those big smashes, this is the way to go. Jump squats are a power exercise aimed at developing the lower body specifically. Performing the exercise will help you move around court faster, from driving from the split step to recovering from a lunge. It will also help you recover to the base position faster will help you jump higher and recover faster. It also helps to work your core, which helps to stabilize you during the movement as well as works on your balance.
Again, being a plyometric exercise, this can be quite taxing on your knees. remember to wear a good set of trainers and use a soft surface such as grass or carpet. There’s also several variations of this exercise, such as tuck squat jumps, or even one-legged pistol jump squats (advanced)!
Fast Feet
This is one of those exercises which seems like you’re not doing much, but will end up burning your quads! It’s a very good exercise for speed and for working your fast-twitch muscle fibres.
Grip Changes
This is a fundamental skill and can be done sitting in front of the TV, so there’s really no need to skip out on this! It’s really important you can transition between grips as smoothly as possible. This will help to reduce the time taken to move between grips so you are ready faster for the next shot – particularly important in doubles!
Stretches
Be honest, do you stretch as often as you should. Chances are you don’t. So what better time than during lockdown to get into a routine of stretching along with your lockdown workout routine! Although it’s not the most exciting part of your exercise, it is the most important, so don’t shy away from it!
Improving your flexibility has a whole host of advantages, including:
- Injury prevention
- Aids with agility by allowing the mucles and joints to be flexible enough to deal with rapid movements (particularly changes in direction) at high speeds.
- Allows you lunge further and deeper should you have to. This helps to retrieve shots that might be just out of reach
What’s Your Home Workout For Badminton?
This list is not exhaustive. Of course, there are many exercises out there that you could be doing. The ones I have focused on here are the ones that give you the most bang for your buck. Incorporate these into your usual home exercises for badminton and challenge yourself!
What’s your work out? Would you like me to write an at home workout routine that you can follow at home? Leave me a comment and I’ll see what I can do!
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