crosstraining: badminton / squash / tennis

Good question, but I dont have many answers. When I play tennis and then try to play badminton it doesn't really work at all because I tend to play with a stiff wrist, making it basically impossible to play. Also it seems you need to grip the racket more in tennis, but if you do this in badminton you are unable to 'impart force' as Zhao Jianhua always says

 

You may find the following thread helpful
http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38968

 

Maybe it's just me, but I feel the footwork of tennis is so different from that of badminton. In tennis, you usually have the luxury of waiting for the ball to bounce before you have to get to it; badminton affords no such margin.

It's also true that tennis requires you to have a firmer grip on the racket. Do that in badminton and you will not have power in your shots.

Just my two cents

 

At best, crosstraining is a form of GPP. Generally, it is overrated for non-beginners.

 

Tennis: no wrist movements should occur during a shot.
the force of impact for tennis ball/racket is much greater than badminton shuttle/racket. Therefore, if you fail to lock your wrist straight, it is likely that you will suffer an injury.

 

GPP stands for general physical preparation. It means any type of physical activity meant to improve your general sporting ability, rather than a specific sport or a specific physical ability.
Typically, it is used to prepare your body for more intense training. Some popular examples of GPP would be flipping tires, dragging sleds, swinging sledgehammers, calisthetics, and playing other sports that are different than your own.
GPP is also used to develop basic movement skills in kids and beginners. For example, if someone can't even throw a ball properly, it is kinda stupid to be teaching them to hit an overhead stroke in badminton. Rather than jumping right in and learning the stroke, make sure they can throw properly (transfer of weight, rotation, arm swing, etc) then when you introduce the racquet all they need to learn is how to handle the racquet (grip, aim) and timing.
So, that's what I mean when I say cross-training is only GPP. A beginner badminton player who also plays tennis will have a basic understanding of how to perform the overhead stroke, so they'll only have to learn the specifics of that motion in a badminton setting.

 

There's a myth that goes around where I come from that says badminton players have an easier time making the transition to tennis. Tennis players on the other hand will have difficulty with badminton.

I'm not sure how true that is, but from observing footwork alone, it seems to make sense. I have a friend who's played tennis all her life. When we went out for a few games of badminton, her footwork was ill-suited to the sport. And while she's learned how to make shots, sometimes her whole arm moves as a single unit instead of flexing her wrist or arm.

Then again she's by no means a representative sample, I'm talking about just one girl. Personally I actually started with tennis, but the gap between my last brush with tennis and my first crack at badminton was more than 6 years (I wasn't athletic as a kid), so I practically retained nothing of my tenuous tennis background when I started.

 

the only benefit i have playing tennis all summer, badminton all winter and squash in between and table tennis once in a while is exercise, i stay fit by playing a sport all year round, no off-season, mostly muscles in the legs from moving around a lot. Arm muscles a bit, but they all use different arm muscles to so its not that beneficial. Also i want to say that technique wise no, definitely cant cross them over.

 

Including all the above another major difference is the use of finger power, (which is not used at all in tennis)

 

I agree with Martin! I also play tennis in summer and badminton in winter and I have no problems at all with transition. Footwork, movement, strokes, tactics, everything is so different. The only thing I see similar is a tennis serve/smash and badminton smash. For both you need to pronate your forearm (not wrist!)... and it's easier to understand this at badminton, so when you learn to smash in badminton you will probably quickly understand how to serve in tennis, BUT footwork is completely different!
Similarity of tennis serve and badminton smash:

 

And also backhand smash is very similar in tennis and badminton (I don't have pictures for that, sorry At both strokes you have to supinate your forearm (the opposite of forehand smash), but of course in tennis you have to do it more slowly if you want to use your arm in future

 

The idea I'm trying to get across isn't a direct transfer of skill.

Have you ever known anyone who was pretty good at any/every sport he or she played? In particular, sports requiring quickness, coordination, speed and skill.

Generally, people who play a lot of sports (not necessarily one particular sport) have a good general base of quickness, coordination and speed, as well as good general movement skill.

When it comes to learning a particular sport, the main factor holding back game-ability is sport-specific skill. However, just focusing on that can mean very quick progress.

This is one potential problem with overspecializing sports training with children. Starting a kid at 5 so that he/she has professional level skill at 15... but then once the game skills are mastered what he/she needs is to go back and build up a better physical base before more skill training will have much benefit.

Meanwhile, a kid who plays lots of sports in childhood, starts specializing in a few sports in early teens then gets into full training with a particular sports during the mid teens is a method that works well. In this case, he/she has built a great base of general preparation that gives great potential for performance in the future. This is the model followed by most north american team sports (e.g. sports where the $$ is) and it works.

Just consider this: imagine you have athlete A who specialized in badminton from age 5 compared to athlete B who started playing at 5 but only specialized at 10. Supposing it takes about 10 years to refine skill to a pro-level, will athlete A at 20 be stronger than athlete B at 20? Most people see the improvement from 5-15 and envision a continuing linear improvement with skill, but really performance increase tapers off at that point.

 

I totaly agree with these thoughts. In the childhood you have to try everything and gain that coordination and the "feel" for motion and you will then learn any sport you'll pick. But sometimes can happen that you transfer a specific skill from one sport (let say a forehand stroke in tennis) to another (badminton) and have therefore problems with it. But this can be "cured" very quickly. I can tell!

 

Wow, I didn't even know there was a doubles event in squash. How does it work? What are the strategies for it?