In an ideal world you would do a bit of both for training, but unfortunatley most of us have to work and therefore cannot do both consistantly week in week out! If you could only chose one as a form of training which would it be and why?
Drill Practice. Learn Footwork, practice drop net lift, smash block lift, clear clear drop net lift etc and become faster around the court. Learning proper footwork in drills will help benefit your game more then playing games constantly. Yes you would improve but you won't become as fast and your shot selection won't be as good.
matches, you will never gain the experiance you need from just drills and drills and drills. you learn how to play which shots and where to place them and also learn how to analyse and exploit your opponents weakness. you can learn things you can't learn from drills but still gain the benifits of doing drills ex) you still train your technique and footwork, but you also learn how to stratagise. so matches are better since you gain all the technique / physical benifits as if you were doing drills + mental and experiance advantages.
that may not be true for everyone, it differs from person to person, someone else may be a faster learner under pressure in matches rather then no pressure drill training.
in matches though you cant take the time to learn foot work slowly or harder shots, doing drills allows you to practice at a slower speed therefor so you become proficent at the technique until you can go faster then put it into a game situation. i dont try new shots in games, simply because its doing *too much* as my coach calls it. if your not proficent at the shot then the stress in a game specially singles its likely you will miss time, miss hit the shuttle.
guys i'm really refering to doubles rather than singles maybe this might make a difference in ur opinions
A general guideline that I've come across in a coaching manual for all sports is to have 75% practice, 25% games for beginners, 50/50 for intermediate and then 25% practice, 75% games for elite players. Keep in mind that these guidelines are for a professional player in the making. So beginner refers to a 10-14 year old kid who has begun specializing in competitive badminton, not necessarily a complete beginner. Intermediate refers to a 14-18 high level junior player, and elite refers to an 18+ professional athlete.
I definitely agree. To summarize, I'd say if you lack technical ability, more drills. If you lack good shot selection/strategy/mind games but are reasonably good technically, more games.
Start with fundamentals (usually drill practice), and at a stage, participate in proper level competitive games / tournaments. Then, once you see the improvement, consider to move up a notch in both categories. For drills, consider more varieties and longer duration; for games, go for the more advanced group to accept more challenge.
