Badminton Fitness – Flexibility In Badminton

The last aspect of fitness I’m going to discuss is flexibility in badminton. When most people think of flexibility, the first thing they think of is the splits. But what does flexibility actually mean?

Flexibility & It’s Importance

Flexibility is the ability to move joints through a full range of motion. Therefore in order to be considered truly flexible, you should be able to move all joints through their full range of motion. This includes your shoulder joints, hips, knees, wrists, ankles and other joints in the body.

Everything we do in our day to day lives involves some kind of flexibility. Something as simple as lifting your arm is an example. When we want to improve our range of motion we need to work on the elasticity of our muscles and tendons.

A major benefit of increased flexibility is a reduced risk of injury. This is pretty simple if you think about it. Take a small elastic band and stretch it until it snaps. Now take a longer one and do the same thing. The longer one should stretch further before it snaps. This is the same with our muscles. If your muscles are stiffer (as with the smaller band) it is more prone to injury under pressure.

Another important benefit is that flexible muscles are more relaxed at rest. This allows better circulation of blood through the muscles and therefore better transportation of oxygen and nutrients. There are links here to the aerobic system.

Flexibility also impacts all the other fitness aspects we have discussed. Without a good level of flexibility, we would not be able to perform many exercises to their potential. Being able to perform any intense physical activity requires a decent level of flexibility.

Flexibility In Badminton

If flexibility impacts everything we do in our day to day lives, you can imagine that it’s incredibly important in badminton. It does not only affect such actions as being able to stretch to reach shots in a deep lunge but also being able to play overhead shots requires flexibility.

The speed at which badminton players move and change direction (agility) implies that they require a high level of flexibility to deal with these movements as it puts a lot of pressure on the muscles and joints. More inflexible players would be prone to injury under this pressure.

Having a more flexible lower body doesn’t just mean deep lunges. It also impacts your footwork on the court. If you’re flexible, you’re able to take larger strides and therefore fewer steps on the court. This is great for covering the diagonals of the court!

Flexibility in the upper body is also important. Players manage to contort their bodies into all sorts of shapes to play around the head shots. It also contributes to more powerful shots through efficient rotation of the torso and arm action through the shoulder joint and elbow.

Improving Flexibility

It should be no surprise the key to improving flexibility is stretching. If you are warming up properly before you play and cooling down, you should already be incorporating stretching into your routine. You should be performing this action before any exercise you do, particularly weight training and high-intensity activities such as plyometrics.

If you’re training consistently, you will (should!) be stretching pretty much every day. This is probably the best approach as you will always be reminded to do them! Dedicating one training session to stretching a week is better than nothing, but it’s a better approach dedicating just 10-15 minutes a day to work on your flexibility

Personally, I like to do a gentle run on the treadmill for about 10-15 mins at a just to warm up my body. I then work on stretches for another 10 minutes or so before I start my main workout. Starting from my legs I stretch each muscle, working my way up my body and finish with neck stretches.

Stretches can also be performed on your recovery days, i.e days which you don’t train. This helps to aid recovery of the muscles from previous training sessions as well as working on your flexibility. Over time you should notice yourself becoming more limber and you should also feel this improvement on the court.

Static Vs Dynamic Stretches

Static stretches are the traditional stretches which come to mind when you think of stretching. It involves holding the stretch in place for 20-30 seconds.

Dynamic stretches are “active stretches” in which the body is taken through movements in order to increase blood flow and prepare you for exercises you will perform later. Some examples include leg swings and knee raises.

There are some studies which show that static stretches before a workout can actually limit performance. Instead, dynamic stretching is prefered because it’s an active stretch, increasing heart rate and blood flow before exercising. It also imitates movements which your body will perform in the coming exercises, therefore better preparing your body.

I prefer to do both. Some static stretches might not adequately cover certain movements of an exercise you will perform. Likewise, you might not feel a dynamic stretch sufficiently stretches the muscle. By performing both you cover all bases! Do what is best for you. Despite the studies, I feel better entering a workout having done at least some static stretches.
As long as I warm up sufficiently before stretching, I feel that it benefits me and I feel better when doing my exercises.

Conclusion

Being flexible doesn’t mean you need to have gymnast level flexibility. It simply means you should be flexible enough to deal with the demands of the sport. In badminton, there are many actions which require a good level of flexibility so it’s important to ensure that you work on both your upper and lower body to produce the best results on the court.

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