Badminton Fitness – Power In Badminton

Power in badminton is about how fast you can apply your strength to act on the court. Both power and strength are inherently connected. When we train for strength we are lifting very heavy weights. The lift is generally quite slow as we’re pushing our muscles at their maximum capacity to overcome this resistance.

Power, on the other hand, is how quickly we can overcome resistance. Everybody has a basic level of strength. If you lift up the TV remote, you do so fairly quickly and with ease. You have the basic strength to be able to lift this object up and doing so quickly implies you were able to overcome its weight easily. This is a very basic form of power.

The stronger you are, the greater the weight you can overcome. If your highest squat is 100kg, then 50kg is likely to be relatively easy and you can lift it at a faster pace. This means you’re more powerful than someone whose max squat is 50kg. This sounds pretty obvious, however, you can be strong without being as powerful, particularly in sports.

Power Formula

Power = speed x strength

The product of strength and speed is power. You cannot have power without one of these two attributes. Even the strongest person would not be able to hit a very hard smash if they cannot produce speed in the racket.
Power in badminton is how strength is applied on the court.

Speed

We often think of speed in terms of running, how fast someone can cover a certain distance. In badminton terms, we would equate this to how fast you can move around the court. However, from a sports perspective, it’s the minimum time in which a person can act. It’s not just how fast you can move. It’s how fast you perform any action.

Although speed and strength are two different variables that create power, they are trained in similar ways. Without strength, you wouldn’t have any speed. If a sprinter only performed sprint exercises, sure they might get a little faster. However, they would hit a plateau as their bodies adapted to that exercise. It is no longer challenging. To overcome this and continue to improve some form of resistance training needs to be incorporated. By overcoming this additional resistance, they will be able to overcome their own body weight with much more power, resulting in faster acceleration.

Power In Badminton

To reiterate what power is; it’s the ability to overcome resistance quickly. In badminton, we are overcoming our body weight, to be able to move around the court and play shots. Badminton players tend to be very lean, maybe about 70kg for males and 60kg for females on average. So relative to body weight, greater strength means much more power than someone whose strength-to-weight ratio is more even.

Being able to move quickly around the court is important but in badminton, we must move quickly in a number of different directions. The ability to do this at speed is known as agility. This requires a lot of strength to be able to twist and turn at speed. The more power you have, the more easily you’re able to do this to stay in the rally and pressure your opponent.

It’s the difference between being able to jump and play an around-the-head smash or having to play a backhand. Having a good level of power means you are able to reach the shot earlier, play harder attacking shots and recover quickly to move to the next shot with minimal lag time.

Weight Training For Power

A lot of the exercises mentioned in stamina also develop power. Plyometrics are extremely important to power development and should be a significant part of your power training. They are also the most accessible as they can be done anywhere, so there’s no excuse not to do them!

We can also incorporate weight training to increase our power, alongside body weight exercises. Remember we are trying to overcome resistance in the shortest time. Therefore we are not going to be lifting the same amount of weight as when strength training. About 75-80% of one rep max. Below are a few examples of exercises which we can do for further power development.

Compound Exercises

Any of the compound exercises from my previous article can be tailored to target power, rather than strength. The rep range (1-5 reps) and the number of sets (3-4 sets) still apply but with a slightly lower weight.

The difference between strength and power is speed. So when performing the concentric part of the lift (when lifting the weight), you want to do so as fast and explosively as possible while maintaining control of the weight.

So for example, when performing a squat you come down into a squat position as normal, then when you “come up” you do so explosively. This is the epitome of the formula power = strength x speed. The same approach can be taken with the bench press, deadlift and overhead press. Be sure when you lift the weight, you do so under control. Do not jerk it up. We want to lift the weight quickly but not at the expense of poor form/injury.

Kettlebell Swings

This exercise is great for power development and like the compound lifts, targets a number of muscle groups. Your core, legs and back are all engaged, in particular, your glutes and hamstrings which are used to thrust the kettlebell into the swing. They contribute to explosive movement on court.

Pistol Squat with Jump

If you thought the ordinary pistol squat was difficult, say hi to its evil twin. This is similar to a pistol squat, except when you come up, you explode up into a jump.

This plyometric exercise is tough. You can use a wall for example to help support you initially. This allows you to focus on the explosive movement only without worrying about losing balance. If you can land back on the leg you jumped off, that’s great. If you feel that this puts a lot of strain on your knee, you can land with both feet. The focus here is on the explosive upward movement.

Power In Badminton – Conclusion

Power is the ability to use strength at speed. The stronger you are, the more powerfully you can perform on court in all aspects of the game. Therefore, not only will you be faster, but you will also be more intimidating to opponents and you will feel mentally more capable on the court. Power is something every player should strive for and something you should have a competitive advantage in if you are to beat your opponent.

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