So I played drop-in a few days ago with my friends. We finished exams and the summer has begun! I knew I was going to be sore as I had not played for a month but I totally underestimated how sore I would be. I played on my university varsity team and we were working on physical conditioning and fitness earlier in the year. Anyways a month really takes you down. Warm-up was fine. We were playing net-shots, clears, smashes, drives etc. When it was time for a game, I partnered up and I felt cramps building up. My quads started tightening up and whenever I moved, my quads would build that soreness. I wasn't going to not-play for 3 hours as I had already paid. I was playing and I could see shots that I normally hit and went for them. But with each stride, my legs burned. It was pretty funny. I know I could have cramped up and ended up with injury but I made sure to stretch after each break. My lower-back muscles started to build-up that sore feeling too. I suppose the green-court over concrete isn't very good for support. I stretched that too. I knew I would be sore the next day. I was incredibly sore during and immediately after we played. Fast-forward to the next two days after that, I remember waking back and my back felt sore just from moving from my back to my side. Getting up was brutal, I was incredibly stiff. To minimize the pain of going down the stairs, I had to position myself parallel to the steps, sideways, and walk down slowly. To walk up I had to hold onto the rail and almost pull myself up as I stepped up each level. I iced and massaged them and the majority of the soreness is gone. It was just pretty funny and cool how an extended period of lack of physical activity affects your body when you try to play like you did before that period. It was mainly the physical aspect of my game. Mentally I was sound, and I still went for shots that caused pain because I figured every move on-court is painful. As they say, go hard or go home!
I don't know about you, but after a month period without badminton and coming back to playing, the next day soreness is actually very...... satisfying. It's often the first few days after coming back you will hurt all over and be unwilling to do anything because it hurts too much. But after that initial period, that's the worst of it. Hey, it means you're getting back in shape! I'm about to finish my semester too except I'm graduating, and I might be out of action for badminton as well for awhile
Jonster, you've had a ride in a time machine: Now you know what you'll feel like after every club night when you are 50 years old! Enjoy your youth! One question, though. Is it possible that you were dehydrated? That would have made any cramping from inactivity that much worse. It just seems hard to believe that a young varsity athlete would cramp so early in the match unless there was another factor at play.
Dehydrated or not, this is due to muscle atrophy. If you're out for a month suddenly after you're regularly playing maybe 2-3 times a week, you will atrophy very fast. This often happens when I go for summer vacation then come back to my university club to play, and I get muscle soreness pretty severely for about 3-4 days.
