When are you supposed to be on the balls of your feet(toes)? All the time? And when are you supposed to put your heels on the ground? Thanks.
Always heels first, especially when moving forwards. This will relieve your knees of stress when your feet hit the floor. When moving backwards, I don't really thing it matters because you're not lunging backwards, so it doesn't matter.
You have it backwards, hitting the ground with your heel is not a good idea. You should always try to contact the ground with the balls of your feet, then naturally go into full foot-ground contact, before taking off again on the balls of your feet. Of course, lunging for a shuttle may have you contacting with the heel of your foot. But that is part of the reason professional players have bad knees.
I think he is correct, when you are moving forward you want to land on your heels and then step down so that you are stable and ready to play the shot, rest of the time you should be hitting the ground with the balls of your feet to that you can push off quicker.
I did state that lunging (fastest forward speed needed) may require use of heel first contact. He is completely wrong in saying that heel first will relieve stress on the knee. Heel first contact leads to many lower body injuries.
I did mention that for non moving forwards it doesn't matter...just forgot to edit the first part of my post. Concerning lunging, a big part of why you land heel first is so your knee will be forming an angle greater than 90 degrees. This will reduce shock going up your leg and will have less of your upper body mass being held up only by your knee. If you lunge with an angle less than 90 degrees, you will have more shock going up your knee, and your entire weight resting on one joint.
That's mostly when jumping up and down, when you want to land on your toes first and roll your heels down. Badminton, when lunging isn't just jumping up and down, it's more like taking big steps. It's not really logical to take big steps and land first on your toes anyways.
Yes, in a lunge it's awkward to land on the toes, and is probably not good (I did not think about it too much when I made the pro-bad-knee connection, my mistake). But the question by the original poster asked for general footwork concerning heel and toes, and you answered "Always heels first". This is wrong, a player should stay on his toes when moving about the court.
When jumping, you should generally land toe-first ("toe-to-heel"). Absorb vertical force by rolling from your toe towards your heel. When lunging, you must land heel-first ("heel-to-toe"). Absorb horizontal force by rolling from your heel towards your toe. See my page on lunge technique, which includes additional methods by which you should protect your knees. In general movement, you should keep your heels slightly off the ground (known as being "on the balls of your feet"). Just slightly -- don't overdo it and act like a ballerina.
I keep telling myself that I should sit down and read through the entirety of your great site, but keep forgetting. So this is confirmation that I was too quick to dismiss the heel-first lunge in my earlier post.
I'm confused now. After you hit a overhead shot and go forward(the follow through)...do you land heel first or toes? And I'm confused...like when you move forward are you on your toes? Or just when you lunge? Thanks!
Long strides or Short strides? In badminton do you take long strides on footwork or short strides? I've seen people who take super long strides....
Ah really? A lot of people gave me feedback and they said my strides looked shorter then normal. But, I'm short. They suggested I should take longer strides.
Toes. Remember that you should be jumping during the hit (not necessarily jumping high, but getting your feet off the ground). Well, you're not moving around on your tiptoes. But you do want to move around the court lightly; you don't want to sit back on your heels.
Also depends on the speed of movement (walk and run are different)! BTW: The heel-concept is important to get right, because striking you heel first like a hammer in the floor (like making a sharp V between leg and food/toes and where the heel is the buttom of the "V"), will give you some trouble. The movement is more a soft rolling act, like a pair that goes together, heel-toe/flat, and not "BANGING HEEL" and then toe...
you take a mixture of both. at your central position, you should be bouncing on the balls of your feet. your split step should be small and so should the following step. the reason for this is if you get deceived by the opponent, it is much easier to recover from having traveled a small distance (small step) than a bigger distance (big stride). your 3rd step (generally 3 gets you anywhere on the court) should be as big as possible provided you can control it. and if you haven't reached your destination, time to dive . the 3rd step is big because by then, you've committed to moving to a certain corner, and so, you need get there as fast as possible. there's no certain length of stride. it should fit into your footwork. take a look at the pros. generally, their first steps are small and their last step is massive. it's almost like they teleport from the middle to a corner.