I have seen a lot of professional players who not only have fast wrist actions but can also swing their arms very fast. I am not talking about the forearm but rather the "whole" arm. I just can not reproduce that kind of arm-swing speed so am wondering if anyone knows what exercise/training can help me in this aspect. Thanks in advance!
Well I personally train by doing racquet swings with a squash racquet. By swing I mean making a full "Smash" including arm motion, rotaion of body, and wrist snap If you do this training everyday, you will find yourself with a monstrous arm swing in just a short period of time.
Swinging hard with a Squash racket will only injure yourself. Squash racket training is only meant for the forearms and wrist... i.e., drives, lifts , etc., You can however practice Shuttle Throw. Stand behind the baseline. Take a feather shuttle in your hand and try to throw it using your full arm swing towards the net. If you do have a strong swing, you would be able to throw the shuttle and cross the net, with the shuttle landing on the service line of the opposite court. Practice this for 20 minutes, at a stretch, twice a week.
I've never seen "throwing the shuttle over the net" as an exercise for building strength/speed. It's normally used to get beginners familiar with the feeling of a throwing action. Actually, I don't like this exercise at all. As the shuttle is extremely light (5 grams), it's uncomfortable to throw (most of the force ends up in your arm, especially your shoulder joint). I'd much rather give students something a bit weightier to throw. As for the question...well, you can try using a theraband (stretchy resistance band). Hook it up to a door-handle or something, hold onto the free end, and move your arm through a smash movement against the resistance. You won't get the entire range of motion for a smash, but concentrate on the internal rotation of the upper arm and forearm -- this is where most of the power comes from. More generally, you can do exercises that strengthen your shoulder muscles. Even doing some regular press-ups will help (ideally do triceps dips as well, to avoid a potential muscle imbalance).
Speed, power and explosiveness is need to achieve the results you want. However, just training the muscles would neglect the fact that a compact/efficient motion is one of the key aspect of the swing. First I'd recommend practicing so that you get a compact and efficient movement in your arms. For this muscle control, balance and form is very important. Some exercises that can help are: - exercise ball push-ups (do a push-up with feet resting on an exercise ball) if that proves too difficult rest your shins on the exercise ball - practice your swings slowly with a heavy racket in front of a mirror do this repeatedly for 10-20 minutes focus on a compact swing, using as little "useless" motion as possible Power is all about exerting the most amount of strength in the least amount of time Firstly you'd have to improve your overall strength. Doing shoulder exercises, lats, dips, tricep extensions etc... will help with this aspect. To execute a certain movement with your full strength in a short amount of time is explosiveness. Clapping push-ups will help in this area. Resistance band training is good too. Take a resistance band and attach it to a pole at shoulder height. Grab onto the other end with one hand and position your body parallel to the band with your free arm closer to the pole. Have your arm slightly bent and pull across your torso, keeping your arm slightly bend. Gradually go faster and faster. This is similar to a rotator cuff exercise done for rehabilitation purposes, but it can greatly improve the strength in your smaller, fast twitch muscles. To put this all together, you must also have good footwork to get to the bird in time to execute the swing properly. Hope this helps. I can't go into too much detail but this should give some results after a week or so of training ps. I used to do shuttle throws and throwing footballs. The motion to throw a football properly is similar to the overhead smash. It is good to get the mechanics of a smash down.
powerful smash is not about how "large your motion" is. Its about how long it takes for your wrist to swing the racquet to make contact with the shuttlecock. Another thing you should keep in mind is contact point ie: The Sweet Spot And timing when you smash to get a nice sharp smash
