I am told that the backhand is a weaker shot, and that good players avoid playing it when they can. Given they would often be playing the backhand deep in the court with the birdie not coming too fast at them I'm wondering why good players don't train themselves to also hit forehands with their non-dominant hand and twiddle the bat to their non-dominant hand when they would have otherwise had to hit a deep backhand. So unless they didn't have time to switch to their other hand or they were playing a net shot, they would only play forehands. I'm assuming since no one does it that there's a good reason. I also play table tennis, and I've seen footage of a right-handed world number one switching to play a left-handed forehand when forced back from the table.
You only play the backhand when you don't have the time to position yourself to hit the forehand instead. But switching the racket from one hand to the other takes quite some time. So even if your skills would be the same with both hands, then that would be a questionable strategy. But learning to play with your non-dominant is really hard for most people. Every movement feels unnatural. Almost all people have no chance of ever getting to the level they can reach with their dominant hand. But even if you're totally ambidextrous, and even if you find a way to magically switch rackets in no time, you'd still have to learn the complete non-dominant-hand footwork and shot technique. Although you'll benefit immensely from general and badminton-specific fitness and a theoretical understanding of the technique, you have to form muscle memory. Doing so would likely take at least as much time as learning to play a backhand clear/smash. For these reasons, all good players learn to play a backhand shot. There are some players who do play with two forehands, but inevitably they are at a very low level, because any serious opponent will make the game very flat and fast; too fast to be able to switch the racket from one hand to another.
Main hand have the best in term of power output, accuracy, & power control as its task is as the name, to do main task (not only badminton but all like writing, eating, etc) other hand, non dominant hand task is as supportive role only like holding paper when writing. The reason is simple, because non dominant hand wont have 100% capability like the main hand. Some people might be able to write both hand, but it just 1 factor which is accuracy. We can learn or train our nin dominant hand but badminton is not just about hand & accuracy. We have footwork, body movement which all is different between lefty & righty. Not to mention power output & control. The main problem when you train your non dominant hand, all your body & mind will memorize it but overwrite your main hand, so the end, it would be just changing dominant to non dominant hand. Unless you do double task on everyday life, like writing with both hand at the same times, eat with 2 spoon on both hand, & all. But again, in real life it wont be easy to do. If you are working man, be ready that your boss shoe would land on ur head if you keep doing it. And actually i have try it to long time ago. Instead of switching, i use 2 racket. A dual wielding player. On the actual games it only makes thing more complicated, unbalance or clashing both racket each other. Even when hard shot come, i would prefer my righty to do the job than lefty as the result will always be better.
A right hander that had somehow trained himself to do a forehand with his left hand, is likely to have a weaker forehand on his left hand, so even if they did have time to switch hands, I am not convinced it'd solve the problem.
every single shot? sometimes a flat fast shot might not be the best shot to play. He said he'd seen "a right-handed world number one switching to play a left-handed forehand when forced back from the [table tennis] table." Note the 'when forced back'.. So, not every time. Maybe if the percentage of truly ambidextrous people(i.e. one arm is not more functional than the other), was 100% and not 1%, then we'd see it from time to time.(when there is time to play it). (But as mentioned, if you're talking about training an arm that you have less motor-control over, it'll still be a weaker shot)
Yes there are many reasons but the main one is it is very difficult to train while you really only use it in one situation (not enough reward vs effort). Backhand is a weaker shot but it is not a weak shot. I don't even think these non-dominant forehand shots would be stronger than a backhand.
then the easiest shot to hit to your body. not only does it confused the heck out of you, it is also no possible to hit with a forehand, and thus you are forced to use your now very unpracticed and weak backhand.
2 points for food for thought... 1. Even though backhand is weak for shots above the shoulder, but it's stronger than forehand for shots at or below shoulder height... due to forearm supination being more explosive than pronation. That's why backhand lift, drive and defence is more powerful and preferred by higher level players. 2. Using both hands for playing will totally mess up your footwork, because you have to decide early in your preparation and approach to the shot which footwork to use. Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk
Nothing really to add but as an interesting fact... There is one person on the tour (that I know of) who is ambidextrous and can play with both hands - Kim Sa Rang.
Not to be nit-picky, but I dont think I fully agree with the point on supination/pronation. I think other biomechanical reasons are factoring into it, especially in which area of your range of motion you perform a movement (backhand below the shoulder usually is in an easier position, so to speak, than forehand). I 100% agree with the point that adding that extra option of going for a second forehand would probably negatively impact the decision-making process in a lot of situations, and the change of hands would likely be fairly difficult to manage quickly enough. Also, the follow-up would be difficult - do you change back immediately? Do you not? Overall, a perfectly evenly coordinated person that starts this very early in their childhood might manage it eventually, but as these things usually go we'd likely learn of new weaknesses once we observe that person/style in action and manage to exploit them, not to mention that that person would have to add a lot of training to keep the second hand both coordinated and conditioned at least close to the first one. You would basically have to double the amount of technical work, and add a significant amount of footwork as well (China jump forehand smash, follow-up forehand net kill is an immediate example I can think of that few badminton players could do well with their non-dominant legs). Overall its simply never going to be time-efficient enough to practically try it. A well-coordinated hobby player could try and adapt to change their hands on a (semi-)permanent basis in case they have a serious injury of their dominant hand/arm/shoulder (I've heard of one example where the player supposedly played in the same league with almost the same success for a year).
