Weight Training In Class

If you are already buff then there is no point doing weight training for badminton.

 

Whoa, hold on here. Figure out who said this and then cross those people off the list of people you can rely on for useful information.

Lifting weights is good for:
- getting stronger
- improving your potential for power
- correcting strength imbalances
- losing weight if you're heavy
- gaining muscle mass if you're skinny
- increasing bone density
- increasing work capacity
- improving body awareness

The exercises you should build your strength workout around are: deadlift, squat, split squat, pullup, pushup and row. Add some extra light exercises as part of your warm-up or cool-down (this could be plyometric training, agility training, core bracing, rotator cuff training, hip mobility or extra bicep training lol). This would give you an excellent basic program that I would recommend to just about anyone.

Exercises to avoid are barbell overhead presses (badminton players have poor shoulder stability), upright shrugs (puts your shoulder at a high risk of impingement), anything where you bend your spine (most abdominal exercises fit this description), most machines (including smith machines) and anything that is described as "toning".

 

totally agree that weights are useful. My favourites are squats and lunges, plus loads of core exercises using rotation and weight and the kings chair. Also, i like pull ups or rows for the back, my reason being, that badminton is using the front all the time: your chest, arms , abs . Your back gets alot less workout, so to balance it out throw in some weights . Advantages = stronger legs to move faster, better core to stay in balance and to twist into shots faster(i.e. more power) amd just general speed and endurance. Yes to weights!!!

 

oh ya, to avoide injury, stretch alot and ensure your weights are reasonable. Use the wobble.balance board with your eyes closed to strengthen your ankles to prevent sprains. ITs excellent. Squats and dealifts will build strong muscle to control the movement of the knee joint and prevent it beig punished too hard, although good shoes and a proper lunge are better.

And you mentioned exercises to get faster. Do all your reps as explosivly and quickly as possible and also try Skipping, sprints, a then google plyometrics.

 

First of all, physical size is really dependent on diet. If you don't eat enough to gain muscle, you won't gain muscle. You can still gain strength - just look at strength athletes who compete in the lower weight classes.

Secondly, as an athlete you need to stop thinking about muscles and start thinking about movement patterns. So instead of saying that a squat is a glute, quad and hamstring exercise, you can say that it is a movement involving hip and knee extension.

There are typically 5 stages of progress:
1. Fix (heal) any existing injuries
2. Learn/develop correct motor patterns
3. Develop work capacity using correct motor patterns
4. Increase the load to gain strength while using correct motor patterns
5. Increase the speed and impluse to develop power (using correct motor patterns)

You typically work on 2 sequential levels at a time, e.g. 1&2, 2&3, etc.

Plyometric training can be great, but results are limited if you haven't prepared your body properly. Stage 3 training is about teaching yourself to work hard, and this type of training is where the most muscle gain will occur. Stage 4 then takes those motor units and teaches them to fire at a higher rate, so that you maximize the force that you can generate with a given muscle mass. Once you can generate that force, stage 5 (plyometrics and power training) teaches you to generate that large force quickly. At the very least, you should be able to squat 1.5x your body weight before you begin doing significant plyometric training.

As for core stability training, this is based on the observation that the spine and abdominal muscles are not well suited for generating movement. A corollary to this is that if the spine moves during a whole body movement, this means that you have an "energy leak" transferring energy from legs to arms, resulting in poorer performance and damaged spinal tissues, as well as having the challenge of trying to launch an explosive movement off of an unstable platform. To get started on this, look up bridge and bird dog exercises. The key is to have complete stability with no movement at the spine. Avoid excercises which move the spine through a range of motion, like most ab excercises.

 

Core refers to everything from the nipple to the top of your legs, front and back - that is- rectus adb, obliques, erector spinae and all the lower back muscles and the hip flexors etc etc. Just basically everything in the area. Sits ups are only ok for the abs. The target a very narrow pattern of movement and muscle usage. Try to google :

abdominal rotations
The plank,
Bicycle sit ups
Kings chairs
Twisting lunge
back extensions

and jogging is great for your lower back ( as long as you dont hurt it by doing so )

and when you perform any other weightlifting your core should be tightened and solid also to protect your spine and give good safe strong form. Once you get good at those ones, try more advanced ones, youll find them all over the internet.

 

It's unlikely that you're eating too much protein by athlete standards, so don't worry about trying to change it. In fact, many athletes that are "cutting" (losing fat) to make weight will often eat quite a lot of protein. It's funny, this is usually an issue for girls starting to work out. They're afraid of waking up one day looking like a huge bodybuilder. The truth is that gaining mass like that takes a lot of hard work and dedication over many years; thinking that you'll accidentally end up "too muscular" is a ridiculous notion.

Next thing, don't use any machines. A machine forces you to perform a movement through a specified path - you don't learn how to create movement this way. Consider an exercise like the bench press: if you do it in a machine you push against the handles, but if you do it with a barbell, you have to grip on to it, keep it balanced over your chest, push in a smooth coordinated matter, etc. The pushup is even better - you have to stabilize your trunk as you push.

I already gave you a list of exercises: deadlift, squat, split squat, pullup, pushup and row. In terms of equipment, you'll need a barbell for the deadlift and squat, a pullup bar for the pullups, and dumbbells for the others. What do you do with them? This is the part where you have to learn correct movement patterns. Go youtube or google the correct technique so you have an idea of how to do them, then go to the gym and practise them! When you start to get a feel for how to do these exercises, go back to the internet and you'll start to understand some of the finer points.

 

i think when it comes to badminton, its mostly about technique then 'muscle strength'. Strong players have good techniques, they can hit very hard etc yet be skinny and small...

I do some weighlifting because i do a lot of other sports, but right now because i am into badminton i am neglecting everything else. whoops

 

What I do is first of all take creatine as it sure as hell helps a lot with boosting ATP levels and buffering the acid buildup which in turn helps me perform much more sets and reps than I normally can. Must load the body up with 30 grams of creatine with carbohydrate intake for about a week and then from then on consume about 6 grams per day for about 1.5-2 months.
Also consume lots of egg whites as it contains a lot of high quality protein as each egg has approximately 6 grams of high quality proteins... I eat around 4-5 a day with around 2 yolks, although it's best to leave the yolk consumption as minimal as possible due to it's high fat levels.
I usually train a specific area muscle per training session, with sessions being 3 days training, 1 rest day then 2 more training days and 1 more rest day.
Firstly it is important to note that without mass, you won't get big and without heavy weights you won't get stronger, sure more reps with low weights build explosive power and stamina but really it's not useful at all for other things and with more strength you'll be able to do a lot more things.
Building up chest mass and shape is very important as you'll see a lot of players do it, to build mass it's best to bench press with barbells instead of dumbells for core strength and then use dumbells to tone the shape also it helps with the triceps a lot too. Incline dumbell presses and flyes are very important for mass , shape and width.
I start of with light weight wiith about 15 reps to warmup before using the heaviest set of weight I can to perform about 8-12 reps for 3-5 sets for each exercise to get the powerfulest pump.
the shoulders especially the deltoids is very important to workout with shoulder presses being the most important to gain mass and strength with lateral raises to gain massive shape and power.
Squats etc are all nice but seriously doing a lot of them and some calf training with machines is very damaging to the joints if not done properly... It's best to do light weights for these exercises or train with a partner that knows his bit otherwise you're gonna end up with knee injuries and arthritis... Also it's always good to consume about 1500mg of Glucosamine a day to keep you joints alright along with around 6 grams of fish oil a day to protect the joints.
After training within 30 min is the window of opportunity period where you should consume aoround 30-50 grams of Whey protein isolate which is soooooo much better than any normal protein including soy. (Milk has only around 1% whey protein despite having quit e a amount of protein). It's important to that you must not neglect fat into your diet as you won't gain the mass needed to conver them into armour plated muscles.

 

Umm I don't really tend to agree that just because people train in the gym, they will get more mass that will inhibit the flexibility to play badminton. I think for a normal badminton player training in the gym even with progressively heavier weights won't get too much extra mass without specific conerntrated training for months and with a proper mass gaining diet. I believe that training would most likley to benefit core strength and a little bit more mass but not like those insane muscles bodybuilders have or those massive armed and heavy guys at the gym.
But in your case I guess your probably already quite tanked from your description so yeah, it's good idea to train more fast twitch explosive muscles.

 

volcom, you do realize that you're describing the classic "frat boy" workout - which is far from ideal.

kazecloud, if you're not concerned about size, then who cares how large your thighs are? What's more important is how much power output they can generate under various conditions - develop that and everything else will take care of itself.

 

If you are too big you won't be able to move around easily as the same if you are too small.

 

Kazecloud, youre worrying too much. I have been lifting weights for about 4 years. I assure you that it is rather difficult to "bulk up" without alot of effort and specific training and eating. I remember seeing a video of you and you look strong but I really dont think you need to worry about getting too big. The cardio/badminton your doing will make it very difficult to gain any weight and given your doing explosive sets and not supplementing/eating to gain mass you'll find it very hard to gain or perhaps even maintain your weight. Youll just get harder and stronger and better defined muscle - over time.

( even if you dont believe me- just stop working out and go for a jog instead and you could shrink right back down again )

Thats an important point by the way. You must apply yourself to long term training with weights. You need a good few weeks before you notice any difference at all and longer again before real change is happening, but it will and it will be gradual and subtle every week and eventually you'll look back and youll see you've improved hugley over the last year/ 2 years etc.

So if i were you, Id stop worrying , go work on your legs and core as suggested and apply yourself to your badminton/workouts , cause its far too easy to get sucked into endless online nitpicking forums etc which will just confuse you and detract from your real purpose. ( look at the racket 1 Vs racket 2 threads for example !! )