It is important in every sports game a warm up is performed to reduce injury, optimise performance, etc. In less than a fortnight I am instructed to lead my classmates into an actual game of Badminton in a practical assessment. I need to refine my warm-up session, it would be very helpful to share your warm-up session techniques and routine.
For our badminton team, we do a lot of jump roping for warm up. Noobs like me have to do 200 single jumps and 100 double jumps while the vets have to do something like 350 single and 200 double. Then some water and stretching and ready for some playing.
Some slow jogging to warm up the muscles.. don't stretch cold muscles. After everyone's reasonably warmed up from jogging start stretching. Stretch either from head to toe, or toe to head. Stretch the neck, shoulders, arms, waist, quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, ankles etc.. from head to toe.
Well I usually do those stretches for my 'cool-down' too.. with a few extra. I'm curious.. you mean stretching is not important?
Yes and no. Yes, static stretching is important as part of your fitness regime. Stretching promotes good long-term muscle condition, improving flexibility and protecting against injury. No, static stretching is not beneficial immediately before badminton. Stretching actually reduces athletic performance and has no measurable effect on injury (the relevant studies used jump height as a measure). Coaches in England are now taught not to include static stretching in the warm-up. Yet if you can't do it at any other time, it's better to do some stretching in the warm-up than never stretch.
You mean it's better we just do some jogging, then immediately train/play badminton without having to stretch? Wow.. never knew that.
Yes. The two main components of a good warm-up are: Jogging or other exercise that raises the heart rate Sport-specific movements (lunges, shadow badminton....), which prepare the muscles for badminton games You might also include some joint mobilisation (dynamic stretching), such as shoulder windmills.
What are differences between static stretching and dynamic stretching? Could you give more examples of dynamic stretching? Thanks.
Static stretching is when you lengthen a muscle and hold it. The aim of static stretching is (at least mainly) to lengthen muscles. I'm not sure of the technical differences between all the different types of stretching. It's possible I'm using the term inaccurately. What you need to know is that: Stretching and holding the stretch (static stretching) is not useful for a warm-up. It is good for a cool-down and for general fitness. Other muscular mobilisation, and especially movements that are similar to the ones used in badminton, are useful for a warm-up. These are sometimes called dynamic stretches (after all, a muscle is stretched or contracted whenever it's used).
dynamic stretching would be like doing arms swings, figure 8's, leg swings, jogging on the spot, lunges etc. Pretty much any movement that you do that results in feeling a 'stretch' would be considered a dynamic stretch. Gollum is absolutely right about the only doing static stretch after playing thing. Static stretch will just stretch your muscles before they are evn warmed up, and will have no help or effect on exercise performed immediately after. It may even be deritimental. Static stretching is for increasing flexibility, and the best time to do it is after hard exercise when your muscles are still 'hot/warm'.
a quick search on google gives you these dynamic stretches: http://www.acc.co.nz/wcm001/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=4092 (scroll down a bit to the pictures). Im sure youve done a lot of them before.
I cycle 10k to play badminton so i don't really warm-up as i'm normally quite loose and when when i arrive. So i generaly just do i little bit of jogging on the spot to loosen my legs when i arrive and knock-up for 10mins starting at a low intensity working my way to "game" intensity towards the end of the knock-up. Mind u i'm only 19 so still quite young. I always warm down gently by strechingand cycling back slowly. ****off topic**** Cycling is a good way to improve your fitness. 1st time i cycled it killed me but its getting easier.
Indeed, biking/cycling is awesome, but I've never used it to "warm up." Rather, I've biked on some trails (AMAZING TRAILS WHERE I LIVE! I live near the mountains, and there's this 24 mile [I think] trail through some great nature areas, you don't get that in the city), and it's great exercise, fresh air, and great for your conditioning. I used it to train for badminton endurance. I love biking in the summer, can get about 1-2 hours at one time on that trail. For me, I jog around a bit, stretch while light rallying (Looks funny, and it's hilarious what can happen if you don't do it right), and then I go into some slightly more serious rallying/drills. Each pair only gets half a court (at most) and sometimes only the space between a court (we only have 6 courts, and about 50 players), so we do half-court singles, drop drills, driving, clearing, etc. Then we stretch slightly before we start playing, then go back to some more drills during the 5 minute warm-up we're allotted before playing.
I just posted some info on dynamic vs static stretching in a "Korean instruction video" thread before I came across this thread. The info that I provided in the other thread appears to be pretty much in agrrement with the stuff that Gollum and t3tsubo have stated here. For what its worth (possibly a slightly different perspective), here's my posting in the other thread: http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=497672&postcount=89
