I help coach at my school badminton club a few times a week and I am concerned about many of the students non-racket arm. Many (of the girls) seem to bring their non-racket arm into their abdominal area/stomach when they hit a smash. As you know, when you stretch for a lunge, your non-racket arm goes behind you to help you balance etc. What should the non-racket arm be doing when smashing? Personally when I smash, my non-racket arms elbow goes backwards naturally with my shoulders as I twist my body... this is right I assume? Was watching a Tago vs Gade game, and during smashes they seem to bend their non-racket arm, but in general, the elbow goes backwards as they twist their shoulders... What is a good way to help remove these bad habits? Maybe make them play with their non-racket hand held to their waist? or practice throwing shuttlecocks, or even the shuttlecock tubes...
I have seen some of our young player trained with their non-racket hand behind their back, when they are training for forecourt lift. I guess girls like to do that simply because they can't control their racket swing and was afraid to hit themselves?
My non-racket arm tends to pull in a bit towards my abs/chest area when I smash, it kind of has to if my elbow goes back. Unless I threw my entire arm behind me and that feels very wrong and feels unbalanced. Like in this video of Fu Haifeng smashing, only my technique is less refined! [video=youtube;eH6qFJoySf8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH6qFJoySf8[/video] I don't recommend getting them to have their non-racket arm by their waist as a training drill, this is a very wrong technique and one that took me months of training to stop doing. It just seems somewhat backwards to me to use a wrong technique to correct a slightly unrefined technique.
