Plyometrics for badminton

Hi this is my first posting on here i am an S and C coach based in the north of england and thought you might find this interesting. Depending on how it is recieved i will post an article with more alternative exercises that could be considered.
Plyometric training for badminton, beneficial or a waste of time?
Plyometric training is defined as “[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']The process of muscular activity, which involves the eccentric loading of a muscle, followed by an immediate concentric unloading of a muscle.” There are many examples of plyometric exercises for example depth jumps, squat jumps and tuck jumps.[/FONT]
[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']Now i’m sure that any of you who’ve trained as a junior will have experienced the conventional ladder type exercises undergone by many junior players. However for the purpose of this article we won’t discuss the pros and cons of plyometric training for junior players but rather that for senior/elite players.[/FONT]
[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']Can we overload a badminton player in the gym[/FONT]
[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']One of the key principles of training is Overload. Robertson (2004) defined overload as training which gradually, progressively and systematically provides a training stimulus. In other words an athlete must work the body harder than they normally would in order to get an effect from training.[/FONT]
[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']Now it is recommended by the National Strength and Conditioning Associtaion (NSCA) that for a well trained athlete a plyometric session should not exceed 120-140 contacts (jumps or other exercises). However i’d like you to watch the video below and see if you can work out approximately how many plyometric contacts Lin Dan makes in just 42 seconds of rallying versus Chen Jin.[/FONT]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ogNZYFv1YA
[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']How many did you count? Now I made well over 10 plyometric movements from Lin Dan in this video (only roughly it was pretty fast). So if we think that a training session last 2 hours then a player who spends only 30 minutes on court during this time could easily exceed 400 contacts in a single session alone. How therefore are we to achieve overload in the gym? It would be exceedingly difficult and probably not a good idea to attempt to reach overload by increasing volume to above and beyond this. So what other options do we have available to us? Whilst it would be possible to gain a training affect by performing low volume high intensity exercises such as box jumps and depth jumps the question needs to be asked, is this really the best use of our time? An elite badminton player can jump over 30 inches so to gain a training effect athletes would need to be consistently reaching these levels. Therefore to improve this height should we be looking at plyometrics to improve this? In the opinion of myself the answer to this is no. Plyometrics would be considered to train reactive speed and it is widely known (if anecdotally) that badminton player’s already have good reactive speed so we must look at another area of jumping that of “rate of force production”. Exercises to improve this would be heavy resistance exercises for example back squats and dead lifts, Wisloff et al. (2003) found that back squat strength had a significant relationship to vertical jump performance. So possibly the best way to improve power in badminton players is not through plyometrics but through the Olympic Lifts, Back Squatting and Dead Lift it is likely that we would be better off looking at alternative ways to improve power and strength in our players as opposed to plyometrics.[/FONT]