I like to think that this isn't an "injury," but I guess it can cause a lot of injuries, so this seemed to be the most appropriate place to post this. Almost two years ago I was diagnosed as having two types of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS). I have type 2 (classic) and type 3 (hypermobile). Here's a ridiculously short summary that won't come close to fully informing you, but you'll get the important parts: 1) it's a group of inheritable connective tissue disorders, caused by problems with synthesizing the body's collagen 2) it causes ranging severity of laxity in up to all joints of the body (resulting in hypermobility and subluxations/dislocations) 3) it causes chronic pain in up to all joints of the body 4) it can be different for everyone who has it 5) there is no cure, treatment is supportive If anyone is more interested in EDS, feel free to ask away or check out the wiki page on in. I'll link it for convenience: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehlers–Danlos_syndrome So addressing the main concern (with regards to badminton), does anyone else deal with loose joints? I haven't gone into much detail about how I handle it and how it affects me, but I will upon request. I am just curious if anyone also experiences this or has familiarity with the subject.
I am hypermobile and is one of the reasons why I have injured my shoulder playing badminton. It's never been dislocated as such, but over-extended/strained playing hard smashes with little warm up. Big lesson for me as I've still got the problem after 7 years.
Never got tested for EDS, but I guess it's possible. I'm pretty flexible for my age and I have hypermobile fingers. I also seem to bruise easily. I also have flat feet, but otherwise I don't have any major discomforts when playing or day to day pains. One time I did injure my shoulder (damn plastic shuttles) and couldn't lift my arm past horizontal with the thumb pointed to the ground. Today it doesn't bother me much once I'm playing but the shoulder does click a little more than usual. I had to re-tool my smash to swing more naturally. I think I actually smash harder now than when I was in college.
Haven't been tested but my joints are quite hyper mobile. Fingers, wrists, elbow, knees all can hyper extend. Flat feet included. Both knees with ACL tears from hyper extension injuries. In regards to badminton, one of the knee injury is from a jumpsmash which landed awkward. So now I play with knee tensors on both knees (3M ACE neoprene with side stabilisers) and I am very cautious to always keep my knees slightly bent when I play and especially when I land.
I landed only once flat with my knees straight and I felt it mostly in my back. Never did that again Man maybe you should get checked out for it.