Last night I played singles against a very tall, very "large" man. At first, I didn't think he would have a chance, but as the game progressed I saw that this wasn't going to be an easy match. I give all the credit in the world to this guy to be able to keep up with me during the games, as I am a short, fast, and unrelenting player. Anyways, back to the reason why I am writing this. I run almost everyday, from 20 minute runs, 40 minute runs, and 60 minute runs. I've been doing this for awhile and I thought from all the running that I have been doing that my fittness during the singles games would be great; however, it was not. I found myself being tired, not being able to reach the shuttle as quick as I would have liked, and at some points my legs felt like rubber. My goal is to become the best singles player that I can be, have I been wasting my time with all that running? Should I focus on some other exercise? I think that when I run, I am training in the wrong domain for singles, what do you guys think? Thanks,
Running is great excercise to stay fit generally but not so great for badminton as we tend to have short and long bursts of high activity. The best excercise would be to actually run the corners on court, if you don't have a court then run lines. Make two lines or points approximately the width of a court and side step back and forth reaching down to touch the line each time. Do that as fast as possible 20 times, take a break, do it again.... do it as much as you can. This simulates our activity on court much better than continous running.
Did you lose your stamina because of unnecessary running around the court? I tend to think that running helps and you feel lighter on court and quicker feet with all the stamina you have built from running.
foot work drills!!! you shld continue runing max 40min.... but also do footwork drills oncourt, the better ur footwork on the court the quicker ur in a singles game http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSmflcwGfhI hope this wud help n do remember tht the opponent u wer playin was tall( m guessin taller than u) normally taller players has a bit more advantage in covering the court.... in that case u not only need good footwork also good shot selection n placement with a clean technique
Yes, he is very tall; I think he is about 6'3 or so. My footwork leaves alot to be desired; I know that I waste alot of energy with my improper footwork, however, it is something that I am working on. Aside from running, would biking be a beneficial exercise for my singles game? Thanks
Got the footwork correct first. For physical exercise, do ciruit/interval training, such as 10 X 400m sprinting, rope skipping-if possible, double skip. I was told that Lin Dan can run 55 seconds at his 11th rounds of 400metres, that's amazing...........my friend who is in the national team can do 10 minutes and 20 sec for his 3000metres run..... speed is important...
Yes, footwork is very important. Lin Dan does 55 seconds on his 11th lap of 400m's? Wow that's incredible; I wonder what his times are for the other 10 laps!? Apparently skipping is good for your calf muscles, or so I have heard. So I should do 400m training to improve my singles games? I can run the 400m in 60 seconds, and the 800m 2 minutes 30 seconds. Thanks for the advice, Justin
As someone already pointed out, interval training is the answer. You may want to Google it to find out more details. Spend your 30-60 minutes on it instead of marathon style jogging. On another note, running/moving is only part of getting to the shot faster (though an important part). You need to make sure your shots are of good quality. E.g. if your clear is not deep enough, your opponent's reply may appear faster to you. Explosive start/stop would also help - you may want to work on your calf muscles. Anticipation is another key, unless your opponent is deceptive also.
i think playing more badminton and shadow work and just plain simply understanding the game will help you develop a good singles game. well that's all i adopted and it has worked for me so far. Skipping is an advice of exercise alot of players offer.
Footwork practice, shadowing, fartleck training and playing more should get you into machine mode. Plyometrics and resistance training will also help a great deal with your game.
throw this in when ur doing a run. run for 5 minutes at your moderate run pace then sprint for 3 minutes. run for another 12 minutes at your moderate pace bringing the current total to 20 minutes. Then run backwards for 2 minutes as fast as u can without falling over. Back to a moderate run for 5 minutes or so then 3 minutes of shuffling to the left straight into 3 minutes of shuffling to the right as quick as you can. Round up the last 7 minutes with a slightly quicker pace run. Brings the total to approx 40 minutes depending on how accurate you are with your timing and changes. I know it sounds a bit silly but these different excersises thrown into a long distance run whilst burst training will benefit your fitness, strength, speed and agility alot. Give it a try and see how u go
Thanks for the replies. So I've tweaked my exercise routine according to the responses. This what it looks like now: 30 minutes of light jogging, followed by 15 minutes of intense cycling, then I take a 5 minute break to do some stretching. After stretching, I do 2 sets of chins till failure, then 2 sets of push-ups till failure. Then I go back to running, 3 minutes of light jogging, followed by a 1 minute sprint, I try to repeat this cycle 4 or 5 times. It's winter right now, so all of this has to be done on a treadmill(gym) until spring arrives. I am starting to realize that badminton singles is very explosive and requires alot of fast twitch muscles. I was only training slow twitch muscles by going on 5 and 10k runs. I am find cycling to be a good alternative to running, it really focuses on the quads and gastroc's, anyways, thanks again, any additional advice is much appreciated. Cheers, Justin
Correct me if i'm wrong, reading from what you wrote here, i'm getting the impression that you still focusing on the wrong thing. Here your routine is mainly focus on stamina and running. As much as stamina is important in a singles game so is your footwork. And by footwork I dont mean being able to run towards the shuttle cock. It hard to explain in words, but if u go on youtube and type in lee chong wei or lin dan and see how they glide around court, you'll get the picture. They take only take 2 at most 3 steps to reach the shuttle, they dont run towards the shuttle to retrieve it. Cause by running you'll end up tiring yourself out really fast. Like what you mentioned earlier playing against the much taller guy, being much taller all he needed was one or two steps to reach the shuttle while you needed more steps to reach the shuttle, i.e tiring yourself and that why you lost. Just my 2 cents.
Thanks for your advice, I have a running background, so I naturely gravitate towards running as part of my training. I am working on my footwork as well, thanks again.
i don't think you have wasted your time at all with your fitness training. i have reasonable footwork, but bugger all fitness, and it makes a huge difference to be fit. If you're not fit, the best footwork in the world will be useless because your legs won't move anyway. That said, if you acknowledge that you are fit, but are still feeling slow around the court, then work on footwork. All the best!
You don't sound to have problem with your stamina with all the running you described. Rather, I think you should look at your footwork or your game itself. You have done a lot of unnecessary running around on court and that tires you out. What good does it do if you have a super fast ferrari on a 4x4 offroad challenge? Forget about the running and contemplate on how you lost to him and how you can improve on it.
Running longer distances proves vital for overall fitness. However, you may want to apply the 1 meter rule for speedwork workouts? Do everything just 1 meter outside the doubles paint. By that, it could mean crisscrossing laterals, shuffling diagonals, forwards, retreats, half-steps, double and triple steps, backpedaling, basically covering the whole area (including the middle) but always extend it 1 meter outside the lines when in training. Come game time, all the speedworks will come in handy! It is not a ''more is less'' or ''less is more'' approach, it is the ''just enough'' approach.
Justin You're doing a lot of the right things and everyone here has offered good advice. One of the key areas mentioned but not dicussed further is the strength and power you need in your legs. You need plenty of stamina so keep up the running. Skipping is great to improve your speed and stamina. Work on single steps to double jumps. The double jumps will really help. Check out plyometric exercises too. e.g. set up 10 small hurdles a jump apart. Feet close together jump over each in a sequence making sure you're tucking your knees towards your chest. A few sets of these will help. Also, look at squat thrusts. ! minute doing these is tiring. A couple of sets is really tiring. There's one final thing. You also need to work your core muscles. Your core is critical to your overall body movement and turning. So good ab workouts are essential. Hope this helps. Let me know. To your success. Paul www.badminton-coach.co.uk
