How would one train to move around court more lightly? I was told that I am quite fast on court, but my movement (especially short distance) is quite "heavy" - like heavy stomping (as if you have no energy left). Is it just a lack of proper explosivness? Or how could I achieve more "light feet" around the court? What would be the best training/excercise/workout?
May be some agility training with a ladder or simply some basic shadow exercices to solely focus on moving lightly.
i'm not sure about this but aren't you meant to always land heel first when moving forward at the last step? in which case it shouldn't be a stomp sound at the last step. A stomp sounds like your whole foot is landing. The second from last step might be another matter.. that could be on the ball of the foot, so again not a stomp.
First thought: Then.... This sounds like there's something wrong with the split step or before that (standing flat footed, too straight legs, ....), but without a video that is impossible to tell.
this will do. I have friend that everytime he do jump smash, he shake the ground as he land. If i see him closely, i see that when he fly up he bend his knee & as he going down he straighten his knee as he land. Kinda like he is kicking the ground. Idk how his bone survive all that for so long as he love to jump smash. Normally when you land, you will bend abit of your knee & slowly absorb the gravity force & push back your knee to move again. This habbit is what your body need to learn. Not forcing yourself agains the gravity but slowly absorb & then alter its force to other direction.
Thanks for the tips! I will definitely try these excercises and see if that helps. I'm not sure what you mean with that ball of the foot, but that's the area where I have pretty big callus (under the toe and also side of toe). Here is a quick video - I know it is not the greatest of examples, because I take it more casually there (doing lifts for partner drops), but it may show you something you wanted to see. For example I can clearly see the straight legs / narrow stance there after moving backwards.
I think alot of people underestimate the importance of core strength for speed especially for explosiveness. Rope skipping etc. of course helps too, but the fundament is core strength!
I fully agree on this. Core strength allow better speed transmission between legs and upper body and prevent the body to be pulled by its own weight when stopping. Loud feet noise is often an indicator that you are losing balance at the end of your movement.
True, overall stability will help and the core adds a lot to that. That doesn't look too bad. I do not think cute strength is the (main) issue here. If you're interested in some lunging/stability exercises, the is some on my channel and more to come. At the moment I just don't get to edit videos at all, so there is a little break on new videos. Back to topic! Looking at your video, you make the split step, show down, make the next step. There split step is not exclusive enough at all, there's a lot of drills to improve that, even if you don't have a coach. Maybe that already solves the problem that you're slowing down. It might also help to practice don't bigger steps. It's just a feeling that it might help to get a more fluent movement. Therefore you could add weight to you're ankles when shadowing (500g or 750g should be plenty). You cold also try to focus on staying low. Very low. When doing drills. The video on my earlier post might help too... Overall, you're doing a lot of things right and if you want to improve, that's a good start to work with. Do rope skipping, the exercises I suggested, strengthen your core and all that other stuff, while working on your split step and the explosiveness. Let us know if it helps.
I didnt' quite catch what you meant by these two sentences - did you mean that I should keep working on my split step and that I should also try to train with a bigger steps? Anyway I will look at those excercises and keep you updated. Thanks!
A split step is more neutral, because you execute the split step before you know where the shuttle will be aimed at. After that you start moving once you know the direction to go. In the video your 'split step' already pointed in the right direction, which is an indication, that you do it after you know where the shuttle will fly, therefor you only need an small additional hop/step to reach it. Nevertheless, you actually do two steps to reach the shuttle. A more pronounced split step (going deeper, wider, feet more parallel to the service line) and a more powerful lunge would result in only split step + one step. Why should this be faster than than your two steps ? Because the split step is executed before you know where the shuttle will land. Badminton is about managing the time budget between hitting the shuttle and when it hit the floor. When you receive a shot, then the split step is almost for free regarding this time budget, but it puts you in a much better and stronger starting position to move to the shuttle (faster = make better use of time budget).
Well I tried to do split step + shuffle, which always results in two steps - left foot then right foot forwards. How would that one foot forward lunge look like? I cannot see myself reaching to the net with just split step and lunging with my right foot forward and I was taught to lunge to the forehand net corner like that - split step + shuffle (or cross feet) + lunge.
The movement pattern (split step + shuffle (or cross feet) + lunge) is okay, my point is just, that it looks like you do your split step too late (I can't see your opponent in the video, hard to guess about the timing). An early split step is for 'free', a late split step is just an other step which costs you time. I think, that in a real game you would not execute your split step in a way, that your feet are already pointing that clearly to the forehand corner. You would only do this if you anticipate this corner (and taking the risk) or if you are too late, else the other two corners (forehand backcourt, backhand frontcourt) would be much harder too reach. In my opinion your first 'split step' is already a real step/hop to reach the shuttle and not a preparation step. But without seeing the timing of your opponents shot, it is really hard to tell.
Ah okay, I see what you meant now. Thanks for the clarification. You are absolutely right about the split step, even in this kind of training I should focus on doing a more proper one.
maybe try this exercise in this video? i havent tried it out myself, i just saw it and thought of your post. i think this is a good exercise because it teaches you to be quick and be light on feet, doing the footwork in full speed unlike the video you posted, where you stand still for a moment, the feeding should come the second you get back to the center, and the feeding should be randomized and not just one corner. that should help footwork speed, agility, reaction time and try to stay active, keep low center of gravity as long as possible and do the footwork patterns correctly in full speed, dont focus on where you hit the shuttle or if it goes in the net. by no means am i a expert, so if anyone knows better or think this is a bad suggestion please correct me if im wrong.
Sorry, that's what you get when swiping a quick answer on your phone while leaving the house. The split step is not explosive enough. Work on it. And yes, I think you should try training larger steps. I'm hoping this will help you to get rid of the slowing down in between steps in the long run.
