Badminon and Tennis

[Matt14500]

I went to Sports Experts today just to buy a cheap tennis racquet so I have something to do this summer. I'd still play badminton but the club I go to is only open every Saturday. My friend who plays tennis says it will screw me up in badminton cause I might get too used to playing tennis. What does everyone else think?

[cooler]

http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/search.php?searchid=727681&pp=25&page=2

[drifterXL]

http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/search.php?searchid=727681&pp=25&page=2
"Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms."

- sry, not trying to be a pain, but im also interested in the answer to the OP's question. im kinda in the same situtation myself.

[event]

No doubt the topic is interesting but there are threads open on it. Go ahead and read it and even revive the old thread if you like.

This one (http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21352&highlight=tennis), for instance. I don't know what happened to cooler's search link but doing an advanced search for threads with tennis in the title may well bring up some other threads, like this (http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43080&highlight=tennis) and this (http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39143&highlight=tennis). Try this search URL (http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/search.php?searchid=727824).

By the way, who is "the OP"?

[drifterXL]

Original Poster. lol ppl use that a lot in forums.

[kermit8883]

Its hard to mix tennis and badminton, tried it when i was younger. Badminton is mostly wrist action while tennis is mostly forearm. With Badminton, you're also trained to hit the bird on the highest point possible, not the same with tennis so u might mix up your timing.

[drifterXL]

took too long to edit my thing :p thanks for the links! anyways, like kermit said, its hard to mix them up. i can differentiate between the two fine. my concern was if theres any long-term effects on my arm, using the two different kinds of techniques. i dont wanna have a case of tennis elbow or like having to wear one of those arm bands to prevent it from getting worse 20 yrs from now.

[drifit]

so far, i am ok in both world, tennis and badminton. maybe i am already used to it. when holding tennis racquet, use tennis stroke. holding badminton racquet, use badminton stroke. saturdays are my test to limit. 5-7pm = tennis. 8.30-10.30pm = badminton. only screw up to me, lack of stamina on latter part.

[SystemicAnomaly]

... my concern was if theres any long-term effects on my arm, using the two different kinds of techniques. i dont wanna have a case of tennis elbow or like having to wear one of those arm bands to prevent it from getting worse 20 yrs from now.

There is always the threat of overuse injuries. However, you might actually be more likely to suffer an overuse injury from playing one sport rather than 2 or more different ones -- it is dependent on how much total time you engage in sports.

If you use proper biomechanics for each sport, then the likelihood of an overuse injury is greatly reduced. Too much wrist extension in badminton can result in golfer's elbow or other problems. Other badminton mechanics flaws can result in knee, ankle, & shoulder problems or even tennis elbow.

Of course, tennis players can incur the same type of injuries. The most comon problems in tennis are shoulder pain and tennis elbow (also golfer's elbow to a lesser extent). Improper mechanics on the 1-handed (tennis) backhand is the major cause of elbow tendinopathy (tennis elbow) for tennis players. One cause is trying to hit heavy topsin using a continental grip on the 1-hand BH.

The primary cause of elbow tendinopathy is using an "arm stroke" for the 1-hand BH. The power should for this stroke should always originate from the legs and a (partial) hip & torso rotation.

Shoulder (rotator) problems usually arise from using overhead strokes in tennis (and also badminton to a lesser extent). It is important to use both leg power and body rotation for serves & overheads.

I've been playing badminton for more that 25 yrs and tennis for more than 30 but have had relatively minor cases of tennis & golfer's elbow. I was able to remedy both of those in relatively short order. I'm still playing badminton 3x per week and tennis 3x-5x per week (since I teach tennis).

My primary problem right now (aside from being well past 50) is shoulder pain. However, this pain is a result of improper hitting technique for vollyball. The amount of tennis & badminton I'm playing just exacerbates this old v'ball injury.

[SystemicAnomaly]

I went to Sports Experts today just to buy a cheap tennis racquet so I have something to do this summer. I'd still play badminton but the club I go to is only open every Saturday. My friend who plays tennis says it will screw me up in badminton cause I might get too used to playing tennis. What does everyone else think?

The mix may mess you up in the short run but probably not so in the long run. In fact, many (if not most) ppl find that, after a while, each sport actually helps the other.

It's my belief that it is probably easier for many ppl to start with tennis & then pick up badminton rather than the other way around. however, I've know quite a lot of badminton players who've learned to play tennis very well -- it just takes a bit of perseverance & practice.

The problem with mixing badminton & tennis is that the 2 sports had a lot in common and also a lot of diffs. It just takes the body a while to learn those similarites & differences. For me it took about 4 months of swtiching back and forth for my body to learn to switch modes w/o any problems.

You might have some issues with timing for a while but this should be at all insurmountable. I went thru the very same type of adjustment when I went from synthetic shuttles to feather (and then back again years later). For me, switching from "tennis mode" to "badminton mode" is now no more difficult than switching from "nylon mode" to "feather mode".

The other major issue is tennis groundstrokes -- they don't really have a badminton counterpart. You've got to learn to lay your wrist back & keep it firm througout the forward swing for your g'strokes.

Grips are a bit similar but also somwhat different. The tennis racket handle is held more down in the palm of the hand whereas it is usually higher up (in the fingers) for badminton. In both cases, the racket is held pretty loosely (relaxed) most of the time -- allow the grip to tighten up naturally on its own whenever the racket head is accelerated. Finger squeeze techniques can be similar for tennis volleys as it is for badminton net kills.

Tennis overheads & volleys should be fairly easy for badminton players to learn. Badminton players often develop more awesome overheads than many tennis players since they get to practice it a lot more (since badm is more of an o'head game than tennis). The tennis serve is a bit more challenging (becuz of the toss) but the mechanics are not that much different that the overhead smash.

Pronation is used to generate power in tennis just as it is in badminton. Flat tennis serves & overheads use quite a bit of pronation. Grounstrokes use somewhat less (depends of the type of grip used). Tennis players don't talk much about supination since its use (for power generation) is much less pronounced than it is in badminton.

Remember to keep your grip relaxed most of the time & learn the proper mechanics for tennis. Keep at it for a while and you will probably find that tennis will eventually help your badminton & vice versa.

[drifterXL]

wow! that was some really helpful information. well from what i can see, basically the important thing to stress is to not mix up the two, and to have a good foundation of the basic skills for both. well i pretty much have both, cuz i took lessons for both at a young age. at first it was just badminton lessons, then i stopped and started taking tennis lessons. im not playing either one excessively, and neither one after another. right now i am playing badminton once a week for an hour, and this week i didnt play. tennis is about the same, i would play for an hour to an hour and a half a week.

so if i plan to play tennis during the week, im not going to play badminton and vice versa. guess i should be ok then!

[morewood]

All I will say is take care of your wrist whilst playing tennis, I know I didn’t and it still hurts occasionally now 15 years on.

[SystemicAnomaly]

Yes, very important -- you want to be certain that the wrist is laid back and remains firm (but not tight) throughout the forward swing of your groundstrokes. On overheads (& serves), the wrist & forearm actions are very similar to the corresponding actions in badminton.