Seven of Singapore's national and youth team players ranging from 15 to 21 years old returned home recently from their "tough" 6-week training stint at the Xiamen Sports Centre (XSC) but felt very satisfied with what they had achieved and expressed the hope to go back again, given another chance, as reported in today's Straits Times. Their training was led by former Chinese national champion Ling Jiangli. XSC has produced well-known shuttlers such as Luan Jin (All-England champion) and Ji Xipeng (Sydney Olympics gold medalist) and boasts of facilities such as a hotel , boarding school, stadium, gym, track, fields and 24 badminton courts. A typical day in the life of a XSC trainee is as follows: 6.30 am: Wake up and stretching 7.00: Breakfast of soyabean milk, you tiao (dough sticks made from flour) and buns 8.00: Warming up 8.30: Footwork practice 8.50: Skills drills 10.30: Physical training - running and skipping Noon: Lunch and nap 3.00 pm: More physical training - running, jumps and weights 5.00: Training ends 5.45: Dinner and free time 10.30: Lights out (Bedtime) From the trainees' experiences, it somehow reinforces my belief that fitness in badminton is of paramount importance. As one young trainee from Anglican High (a school strong in badminton), 15-year old Swee Hau said, "I feel stronger now and have more strength. I feel like attacking." Perhaps 21-year old Khoo Kian Teck's, member of Singapore's mixed team that won a silver at the Manchester Commonwealth Games, experience is worth repeating. Khoo weighed 89kg at home and is nicknamed "Fatty". After the short stint in XSC, he lost 6 kg. He is determined to bring this down to an ideal weight of 75 kg. He confessed that he could hardly last a game as physical weakness was his main problem then. Now his stamina is better and that helps him to improve his agility on court. Just how did the trainees improved so much? Khoo gave an insight into their demanding physical training regimen. The trainees underwent regular 10-km runs, speed tests over 400 m and 800 m. The coaches set personal targets for them for the 400 and 800 m. If they don't make it, they have to repeat the distance over and over again till they pass! Khoo himself had to complete eight 400 m runs under 75 seconds each, with only a 3-minute break in between laps. The six 800 m runs had to be covered in under 3 minutes each. For every lap that he failed to meet the target, he had to run an additional one. It was so tough that Khoo had a hard time adjusting to the rigorous physical training during the first two weeks. The greatest shock was that on the very first day the trainees were made to run 10 km, which many had never done before in their lives! Previously, they just ran 2 or 3 km only. But despite the toughness, the trainees had prevailed and they are asking for more.
wind rider You may not have a chance yet. But the least you can do is to emulate their runs and see whether you can measure up, fitness-wise that is. Do not despair if your initial times are a little off target. As I recalled you are 16 and pretty close to the 15-year-old that I mentioned, so you should not be too far away. Do bear in mind again that their training spanned over a 6-week period, therefore you should try to space out your training, less demanding initially and slowly progressing towards your goal. Remember too that the trainees did not have other distractions and they could fully concentrate on their tasks at hand. Your circumstances may be different. Therefore you need to take into account many factors to enable you to devise a workable plan with which you can deliver. Work with a partner or partners who may have the same aspirations. The sweetest part of it all is that at the end of the day, you will be able to "ride with the wind" on the badminton court and 'blow' away all opposition!
Wow. I represented my team last year in the 400 m run, all of the runners could have died! Everyone was just glad to be able to finish it, including me. lol. I ran in a 4 km jogathon before, wow, that was fun! lol, but I can't imagine doing 10 km!
From what I heard, I think XSC were already "too nice" to the guest already. Someone told me that the regular chinese athlete needs to meet more strict target, as well as putting on extra weight while doing certain physical tests. So, heheheheheheh.... guess my "play ground" style is much easier to learn, but that's also why I am still suck...
My memory could be betraying me: one of physical tests for Chinese junior shuttlers (up to 15 years old) have to complete 5000m in 15 mins or less. Badminton is a very demanding sport indeed. I did not believe my coach then. My subsequent injuries just confirmed his words.
Angelican high school? How interesting. THat school came to the Hong kong Sports Institute for some friendly matches agains the HK Jr squad including myself. They did not match any of the HK players but for regular HS players they are quite good. They would surpass the level of US High school players by a mile.
Interesting this level of fitness demanded in Xiamen. Maybe China ought to send xia Xuan Ze to Xiamen to build up his stamina.
If I went there, the coach would have to give me a target much greater than 75 sec. for the 400 m. I'd never get on the court--I'd spend all my time re-running the distance, getting progressively slower. I might as well attend a track camp instead. But for the 10 km, no problem.
Reading this post makes you realize just how tough reaching the top is. It was mentioned that the training regimen emphasized just how important physical fitness actually is for success. When we watch elite athletes on TV or in person, we are amazed at their skills, but often don't realize how incredible their fitness level is, and how much they practice those skills even though they are naturally gifted, which allows them to maintain that skill over a long period of time. It's a lesson for all of us who want to improve our play - we need to work on our fitness level, practice our skills, and really push ourselves.
Hi Everybody Thanks for the interest shown in this topic. I agree that Xia has somewhat been a little lethargic in his recent performances and he was unfortunate to have to face his compatriot, Chen Hong, on a few occasions and lost, primarily because Chen knows his game well. Chen himself suffered injury during the earlier part of 2002 and took some time to recuperate before returning to the badminton scene during the mid-year and regained his form and won a number of tournaments. I think he must have learnt his lesson well to keep in top fitness condition, not only to avoid unnecessary injuries but also to be able to win top competitions, as some of our senior BF posters, like viver and shoulderpain have also emphasized on the need to be in good physical condition. Peter Gade suffered the same fate and is now on his way to enjoying the badminton limelight once again, something which he has been used to not too long ago. I glad to note that some of our BF posters are acquainted with our Singapore badminton scene, either through having played badminton with some of our players or are familiar with the training methods that they received from their China stint. Through the BF, I also begin to have a feel for its participants, many of whom have connections to badminton-loving nations in Asia, like myself in Singapore. Some of you even have your roots in China! Many in Hongkong! Judging from Californian's post, he must be a long-distance runner as he seems to like the 10,000 m rather than the shorter 400 m (now considered a sprint) and 800 m. But as viver has also posted that he recalled that the Chinese junior shuttlers have to complete the 5000 m in 15 mins or less, I wonder whether Californian could do better? If he could, he must be rather fit, maybe a little lacking in speed, though!
That has gotta be too insane to be true. After several months of training, I could only get my time down to 20 min for the 5km when I was 15. An extra 3 minutes would have been difference between the first guy and the last guy in a race! How many of us could even come meet that now? Their nutritition also seems to be way oout of whack. For that kind of exercise, buns and yu tiao (not you tiao!) only would cause serious degredation in muscles. They should be drinking whey protein drinks and eating chicken for breakfast. Excessively vigours exercise have been shown over and over again to cause far more harm than good. Haven't they learnt anything from the last 15 years of sports science?!! Im shocked. I'm sure they'd be able to play much better with proper nutrition.
if other were not being train as hard as the Chinese, then i guess the Chinese are not willing to impart their skill to the rest of the world. so we are still 2nd class to them as far as badminton are concerned. imo
Thanks for sharing the training routine with us. Even when I was younger and running 200/400/800 for training, the best I could do was about 80 sec. for the 400. For the 5000, I would consider 20 min. a good time, low 40 min. for the 10,000. Best half-marathon about 1 hr. 45 min. So, if running speed were required, I wouldn't qualify for anyone's team. These days, I do mostly hills and steps.
I agree with you on the nutrition issue. But I think only the national level ones are being pampered. I also agree that the timing is very aggressive. Other than running the 5Km, they also need to make the 100M under 13s. I believe the components have to do with the game of badminton. If you want to find the potential future world champion, he/she must show some promising credentials. Talent/potential parameters varies quite a bit from our perspectives and theirs.
No offence I think your memory is betraying you The Olympic record for 5000 M is 13.05 and these guys train as full time runners. There's no way any 15 year old badminton specialist could do 15 mins, actually I doubt many 15 year old runners could do it. Admittedly I do miss being 15, back then my times were nudging a minute for 400, 2:20 for the 800, and just under 20 mins for the 5K. Now I'd be lucky to do 5K in 20 mins on the pushbike
You are really good to do 5Km in about 20 mins. For 400m when I was 14-15, I think it was around 70s and 13.2s for 100m. I have some idea about them because it was the only time I was timed in a PE class for the teacher was selecting members for the track team. When practicing badminton more seriously, we used to run on weekends a circuit just over a mile long and I did at my best (2 laps) in about 13 mins. A few years back, I did a lap in about 13 mins. Today I doubt if I could finish one lap at all. I've seen the papers with the tests the athletes have to go through in the national selection process. The person who showed them was part of the coaching staff that did the evaluation. While I mentioned 15 year old potential players, actually the tests they had to do were no different from the provincial/national team members. But no offense, if you did 5 Km under 20 mins, it would not surprise me if the coaches in China set a 15 min goal for the potential national team candidates. Last year or 2 years ago, CBC (??) showed a documentary about the kids training gymnastics in the national center in Beijing, China. The featured kids, I would say were about 8 year olds. After the training they would do a jog from the gym to some place - dormitories?? and back to gym. They had to do it in 15 mins. The reporters measured the distance and it was about 3000 m.
Ah but I wasn't a badminton player back then, I was a runner, if you do some quick searching on the internet, you'll find 15 mins for 5 K is a very good time (if not better than a lot of club records) for fully grown men. Whilst 15 mins may "only" be 25% better than my best time you're suggesting that these fifteen year old badminton specialists are only 13.3% slower than the Olympic 5000 M record holder ((15-13)/15) at a minimum!
