Can someone highlight the best footwork drills? There seems to be millions (Btw Im an intermediate player who is tall and quite slow on court)
1. Observe yourself on court. 2. Figure out why you're slow. 3. Come up with a drill to work on that weakness. Numbers 1 and 2 are the most important, though it isn't quite doable over the internet without video. Number one is what most people focus on, but without knowing what you're trying to fix, you might have difficulty with your progress.
I got it! Hi stumblingfeet! Ur username gave my weakness away. Whenever im playing singles on court, i tend to sort of stumble. Like jog in one place before going for the shot. I dont do it purposely. I dunno why it happens :S Would you happen to know why? For example, when the opponent plays a drop i would jog for a while and then move towards the shuttle and end up taking it well below the net.
one thing my coach helped me with, is you need to sprint, then lunge then drag your left foot if your right handed or vice-versa
There is no such thing as the best footwork drill. Since you mentioned that you are tall and yet slow on court, I recommend you do lots of agility exercises plus sprinting to speed things up.
Anything that involves various parts of the legs moving quickly. For example, tapping your feets against the floor rapidly for 30seconds to one minute. Running on the spot with your knees raised to your chest. Running side to side touching the side lines of the badminton court as fast as you can for 30 seconds etc2.
I am also a tall player and used to be slow. After a coach looked at me play he noticed I stood in the base position with my legs straight. This means that before I was able to move I had bend my legs first and then push off. Now I have my legs bent before my opponent hits the shuttle, this way I can push off towards the shuttle straight away. Now I can reach different areas of the court much faster.
Try practising footwork to each side, so front right, front left, middle right, middle left, back right, and back left, so you can move from one corner to the next smoothly.
Keep in mind however that the main objective is to improve the technique with which you do these exercises. Here's an example of a footwork exercise: find a line on the ground put both feet together hop over the line laterally continuously for 30 secs, try to go as fast as possible There are a couple of things to pay attention to: 1. your feet: ideally your feet will spend little time on the ground, about .15 seconds per contact. The feeling should be that you're skipping off the ground, there shouldn't be any "straining" of the muscles 2. your hips: when you move efficiently, you can reposition your legs without moving your hips, so your centre of balance remains steady. So in this drill you want to position your hips over the line, and move only your feet. A key thing is to do them FAST. One of my friends (a tall guy) was doing this exercise at a slow rate of 1.5 hops/second, and he didn't get much benefit from the exercise. I consider 4 hops/second to be decent for 30 seconds, while 5+ hops/second would be good for 10 seconds. Once you get good at it from a standing position, descend into a quarter squat position for the exercise (e.g. your knees and hips stay bent, you just reposition your feet quickly). Then progress to half squats, then deep squats.
how about picking up shuttlecocks? place shuttlecock at every corner of service court area. stand at middle, go pick up the shuttlecock(1) and come back to centre before picking up another one. check out your timing as u practice. see how is your progress? less and less time? then, add more shuttlecocks, middle front, mid left and mid right... mid rear. hm... now you have total of 8 shuttlecocks. hope this shall train your footworks.
u need do split jump in the middle jus b4 the person hits the shuttle... it works as basically u keep ur racket foot in front and ur non-racket foot behind ya.... do that basically whn da opponent is about 2 hit the shuttle that way u got the movement ready and u can go anywhr in the court straight away.....that 0.5 seconds can give u the edge in a reall important game! and 2 work on ur foot work: do the exercise drifit said!!! but practise ur split-jumps in the middle!!!... go 2 the back n throw the shuttle over the net and then do split jump in the middle!
Hey, I am tall and i used to be fairly slow. A really good way to improve your speed is to do multishuttle work with a good coach. It improves your fitness and speed soooooo significantly.
