Is it a full tear? Or a partial tear? In my view, I don't think you will have any long term detriment - just a short term discomfort. I know that sucks, but I genuinely don't think it will cause much problem long term. The fact that it still hurts three weeks in and you can't hit shuttles is completely normal. I would advise against hitting shuttles for a few weeks, but you could swing a racket (just keep your pain at a max of 6/7 out of 10 - more pain than this indicates you may be in danger of further damage). Its important to keep using the hand to build up your strength in the correct way, but withstanding the shock of impact is something else - thats a huge amount of force for an injured tissue to withstand! Good luck! Take care!
Sorry to hear of your injury. Don't give up on badminton, yet. You are a remarkable role model to your kids --and to BC. Stay confident, be patient, and hopefully good things will happen.
It must be a full tear because the gap between my metacarpals has widened. One of the other things is my motivation. I used to play singles. It's ideal for me. Irregular and unpredictable work lifestyle means that I am much of a loner when it comes to training. But now I am older I reached the top of my game which was a quarter final finish in my age group a few years ago. My opponent was an ex national player and I was fairly easily controlled by him. Looking around, 6 out of 8 quarterfinalists were either ex HK team players or full time coaches. So, in order to reach the next level, I would have needed to up the magnitude of training and personal coaching which was impossible. There was also a meniscus injury which made me rather cautious on court coverage and putting it through sustained rigorous singles training For three years, I have concentrated on doubles but unfortunately had a long layoff in the middle due to plantar fasciitis. Again I have been getting to the quarter finals consistently and I am much better against the good players. Converting from a singles game to a good doubles game is very very different and ideally needs a mixture of personal one on one, training with doubles partner and training with four people. It's this last two points which is difficult to manage with an unpredictable work schedule.
Noooooooo, don't let this injury spiral you into "I'm an old man and I'll never be good and why do I even bother cause I suck" mentality. It's a small injury, it's keeping you out of the game now, and for a few weeks which will be hard to deal with, but you'll do it and you'll go back to playing badminton as best as you can...which won't be as good at national players, but the challenge of playing and improving will still be fun and worthy.
I am not sure your first statement indicates a full tear. It could just be swelling, it could be a large mass of scar tissue (which will decrease slowly over time). Now, it sounds to me your goals are quite long term focused and where you ultimately want to get to. But I think there is real power in just wanting to be better next week than you are today. We play badminton because we love the sport, not because we will all be world class. Good luck mate
Nearly OK with the hand. I played twice last week. One was a social session sharing the courts with Robert Lim (ex Malaysia) and Zhang Yawen (ex China). The hand was sore afterwards. The second time was in a joint team match. We had to play six other teams. Our team had a lack of people so I got roped in. The young guys are very tough to play. It is quite clear to see that today's generation of players are specialising in doubles much earlier. Before, the prevalent thinking was to play singles and change to doubles. But now it is quite obvious that the players are now being trained in doubles much earlier. Our team came third. This year's competition was a tough one. We get some new guys in our team for next year but the stakes have been raised.
Already playing in less than a month! Happy to hear this, as it sounds like a full recovery could be on the cards, and sooner than expected too. Does it feel like you've lost much ground, or can you catch up soon? Hope to see you in some tournament videos early next year
Well it's still tender. My right ankle was hurting after that session. So, yeah, things are not that great but I have enjoyed my badminton over the years.
Hey Cheung, just caught up with this thread; sorry to hear about your injuries. Specifically, regarding your ankle, I made this post in another thread recently and thought it might be of some use to you. That aside, if you don't mind me asking, at what age did your badminton peak at? At my current age of 30, I feel that I am running out of time and at the threshold age. As such, I'm seriously contemplating ordering some gym equipment for the home so I can realize my peak condition and not look back with regrets. The older I get, the more vulnerable my joints feel after matches and a younger version of me would not have accepted some of the compromises I currently make with regard to not committing fully to every shot in lieu of risking a fatal injury. I'll end by saying that I got thoroughly beaten (thrashed) by a 68 year old in singles, I didn't go easy on him either as it would be impolite to hold back against an opponent of that caliber. Also I know of another 50+ who has had knee surgery and currently has no knee cushioning (knee meniscus or something along those lines, can't remember the technical details). The local club that I play at has a lot of senior players during the weekday morning sessions and although none of them are at the professional level, they do seem to be thoroughly enjoying what they do; I have a hunch that badminton is a sport for life due to its addictive nature. Best wishes for a successful rehab and recovery Cheung.
CMIIW, I believe that the notorious bunch of players shown are all using 3U racquets; in particular, Lee Chong Wei is using a ZF2 here: Lin Dan also currently using a ZF2, repainted as a LDF. This is also a personal opinion of mine as a ZF2 owner but I do believe that the common opinion of a ZF2 shaft being stiff is one of a misnomer / marketing plague: it's commonly advertised as being 'extra stiff' but majority of the high end yonex racquets all have this meaningless and unfounded rating under their descriptions; rather the racquet stiffness and balance point matrix tells a more accurate story. The general public also fails to notice how thin the ZF2's shaft is, compared to the average shaft, let alone the thicker shafts out there. Author's note: These realizations came to me after much thought and after thoroughly thrashing one of my Voltric DG10s after a year's worth of 32-34 lbs worth of tension and hitting abuse. It is also worth pointing out that the DG10 has a Yonex approved rating of "extra stiff" too. The DG10 felt stiffer when new, but nowhere near what I felt on the borrowed nanoray Z speed mentioned above. After a year, a small but noticable amount of stiffness was lost; its now still in the flexing phase after the shuttle has long left the stringbed. Lastly, before anyone starts discrediting the DG10 as an inferior budget racquet, I took this picture to show the comparisons between my ZF2 and DG10's - as you can see, they share the same identical quad compact frame shape design, tungsten grommet bumper strips and so forth. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1212487435 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1212486575
I choke up the racquet many times but your point is taken. Referring to singles, before the age of 35. When my kid came along, time became harder. You got to do it before having kids!
You can't keep a good man down and I started training again for HK championships again a couple of weeks ago. Barely touched the racquet in 5 months but I have been continuing with exercise in taekwondo,, Thai boxing and gym work. Thai boxing is interesting because they get you to do high intensity work and their idea of a rest period is for you to do 20 sit ups and 20 press ups before having some water. With that background, I started playing again about 3 weeks ago. What did I notice? It's been far easier to restart playing. Obviously the hands were a bit rusty but not too bad. Need coaching again. Coach says I can do a lot more work than before due to better body stability. I changed to a 4U racquet due to my hand injury. I have two racquets. There is a facebook page for secondhand racquets in HK. And I picked up some good prices. I did some reflection on last years training regime. I was pretty happy with the practice and strokes but less so under gameplay. I feel under pressure if my movements are slow. I definitely didn't handle the drift in the hall very well in last year's competition. That hall is a big one and the drift is different on different courts. What have I done in training ? My coach is busier and has regular students. So, he has less time for me. I try to fit in an hour or two around his schedule but this is not going to work out for many occasions. That means I do have to find other coaches who are available at the odd times that I am available. My coach is totally OK with this. I managed to find another coach who is quite available at a certain time spot. This gives me a good second option. Interestingly, he was an England International singles player in the past and is an experienced coach. He is here in HK on a short stint which fits into my time perfectly. My present aims: Work on my movement. After the few breaks with injuries, I have lost a lot of body awareness. I am OK with slow games but when the pace goes up, I can't raise the speed and I know it is a technique problem rather than lack of strength Work on my movement rhythm. That's heavily intertwined with the above. Sometimes I am moving too early trying to anticipate too fast and I have to slow down at certain situations and know when I can speed up. I have done this sort of training many years ago in singles but lost it. Of course for doubles, I would have to retrain it for different tactical scenarios. Work on backwards and forwards movement. Smashing through opponents is not an option Rallies are longer so that means more drops and clears to pull people out of position. Better movement around the court means more shot options, turning around situations and putting the opponent under mental pressure. So a large proportion of my time so far has been working on these areas. I will describe some of the problems with discussion in another post which should be fairly interesting.
Glad to hear you are back at on court. Good luck with your training. Work hard ... but don’t injure yourself. (Being middle-aged is dangerous!)
Great to hear that update @Cheung ! After my third hip op I've cancelled the local gym membership since I hardly had the energy to get down there after work or at weekends (went about 2/month). Instead I've signed up to the much more expensive one at work and go there when I'm in the office (2-4/week). I used to always start with squats then do upper body stuff mixed with some cable work for hip abductor. Physio told me that squats not that great for glutes so I've added RDLs. I find they're good for hamstrings, but don't notice glutes greatly on them. I do notice good glute activation at bottom of squats, however. unfortunately for RDLs I'm severely grip-limited rather than weight-limited. So quick lunch time work out is some combination of One of: Squats 70kg RDL ~60kg Plus push or pull: Push: Shoulder press 10kg dumbbells chest press 15kg dumbbells Pull: seated row machine assisted pull-ups 25kg/33kg + bodyweight negatives when fatigued. Accessory when have the time or equipment not available: facepull cable tri pull down cable. Plus superset stuff with "4 minute glutes". (Yes I'm a weakling with lots of fat, 180cm 80kg)
5 months off? If only! Apr 2015 Shoulder op. Hip stops play at Oct 2015... June 2016 hip op. Feb 2017 hip op. Nov 2017 hip op.
