Badminton Fitness – Strength In Badminton

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Strength

Strength is the maximum ability of the muscles to exert force against a resistance. It is primarily an anaerobic exercise. In badminton, developing strength is a key factor in improving speed and power on the court.

Muscles Used In Badminton

Nearly all muscles in the body are used in badminton. However, due to the nature of the sport, the muscles on the racket side of your body are more dominant. This is an issue that we will mention further down.

Muscles in the lower body; the quadriceps, gluteus maximus, hamstrings and calf muscles all contribute to movement around the court. The lower body is very important to develop in terms of strength.

For the upper body, the triceps, biceps, forearms, chest, back, shoulders and core muscles all play a role in playing different strokes. It is not just the upper body that produces power. It’s a combination of all the muscles working together.

Why Strength Training Is Important In Badminton

Badminton is an incredibly athletic sport. It incorporates the muscles in both the upper and lower body, using a number of muscles in unison. Therefore, there’s a number of reasons why these muscles should be developed for strength.

• Imbalance: As mentioned above, the muscles used in badminton are dominantly on your racket side. This causes asymmetry in your body. Normally, we expect our dominant side to be naturally stronger. However, when it comes to sport, particularly high-intensity sports such as badminton, this asymmetry can lead to injuries. Therefore it’s important to ensure your less dominant side is just as strong to avoid stressing the weaker side too much or letting the stronger side overcompensate. This is why dumbells are particularly useful for badminton as they help to address imbalances.
• Speed on Court: Lower body strength training improves your speed around the court. The more force you can apply when moving around the court, the more efficiently you can do it. Especially for those shots where you’re really stretched. Having strong muscles will allow you to push that little bit further to retrieve the shuttle. It will also help in recovery after you play a shot to return to your base position. Again this is particularly important when under pressure and you need to regain the advantage in the rally.

• Stronger attacking shots: The power in attacking shots just doesn’t come from your upper body. Its produced by your legs transferring energy through the body and the efficient movement of each muscle to produce the smash. The whole body works together, so increasing strength in both your upper and lower body contributes to this power.
• Joint protection: It’s been mentioned many times on this blog; badminton is extremely stressful on the joints. The actions of jumping, stopping and starting rapidly and the number of times we change directions are not kind to our joints. By strengthening the muscles around the joints we help to protect them by supporting them and also through shock absorption. Particularly important for badminton!

Safety First!

Form is an extremely important part of weight training. Before any training, make sure you know what you are doing and how to handle the exercise. This is important, even if you’re only using your own bodyweight. Strength training can involve your own body – which typically consists of pull-ups, push-ups and other calisthenic exercises. Most commonly it is associated with free weights and machine weights. All of which can be done relatively affordably at home relative to a gym membership and space!

When using dumbells or barbells, it’s important to know how to lift the weights into position to perform the exercise and how to relieve yourself of them safely. If you lift incorrectly, you risk serious injury, including stressing the joints, dislocation and tearing muscles. Not to mention dropping the weight on yourself! If in doubt, seek professional advice before you commence weight training.

Compound Movements

In badminton, we use all our muscles in unison. Therefore it makes sense to train the same way. Compound exercises are exercises which incorporate a number of muscle groups at the same time. This is the most efficient way to build your strength and also the most beneficial for the sport. Compound exercises allow you to lift more weight, which in turn strengthens the whole body.

These exercises also incorporate your core muscles. There is often an oversight when it comes to training core muscles but they are one of the most important areas to work on. They provide stability to your spine, helping to prevent back injuries, stabilises movements and balance, as well as helping to generate power and transfer energy from the lower body to the upper body. These muscles are not just the abdominal area but also include the back muscles.

I do not advocate the over-use of isolating exercises which focus on single muscle groups at a time. A bicep curl is a classic example of an isolation exercise. There’s no functional advantage to doing isolation exercises. We want to be performing exercises that will translate directly to benefits on the badminton court. If you want to be a better player, you have to train with this in mind.

Misconceptions About Strength Training

• You will get too bulky. There’s often a fear of muscles getting too big. One side effect of weight lifting is bigger muscles. However, unless you’re training with the specific intention of attaining hypertrophy, you will not look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Particularly if you’re following a badminton specific training regime. Think about it, why are none of the professionals very bulky despite taking strength training very seriously?
• Loss of flexibility. Flexibility includes all areas and joints of your body, not just your legs. Studies have shown that weight training can actually help to improve flexibility (something we will discuss in a future article). Most of the professional players are still very flexible despite the high level of strength training being performed.

• You need weights to work out. Strength training can be done at home and with no or minimal equipment. There are many variations of bodyweight exercises that will help you progress and gain strength. If you need a little more, resistance bands such as these, are great for progressing to more challenging exercises. With some imagination, using only these two things, you can create a whole repertoire of workouts.
• Muscle turns to fat. Muscle is muscle and fat is fat. They are not interchangeable. Muscle is gained through resistance training. If you are sedentary, this muscle does not become fat. Fat is gained through the food we consume and lost through exercise and correction of our nutrition. Training for badminton is likely to result in reduced fat levels and gains in lean muscle mass.

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