Had quite a bit of time last night. I did a boxing session and then went for badminton. My rough calculation is over the 24h, I was deficit in calories of approximately 1300. I did take some extra protein for supplements. Sounds good but last Sunday, I had a very bad cheat dinner with lots of fatty meat! Definitely felt tired in the legs during badminton. The group is the highest level session that I can easily access. The players were all top university players and younger than me by a couple of decades - the shots are faster and stronger. My movement felt better again but because of the tiredness, I stumbled a couple of times, especially with the right rear court to left rear court covering as the back player. Really couldn’t get my left leg to move across as the first step - my right leg would make the initial step and of course the legs get a bit tangled up. I can do a bit of practice today on that off court. Other things that need improving are getting used to receiving harder smashes- I can’t really flick them up left or right but only controlled flat pushes. My low serves and forecourt net control was satisfactory. I use Aerobite Boost string and I seem to have good touch with it. One of my favourite shots is to cut the shuttle so that the shuttle tumbles upside down with the feathers then catching the top of the net. My record is five netcords in one game of 21 points. It was nice to have a good chitchat with the players as I haven’t seen them for a long time. They felt my standard was quite ok considering I have had long periods of not playing the last few years - meniscus injury being one of the reasons. Good improvement since beginning of Jan when getting on court again. Coming up is another session tonight, coaching session on Friday and tournament Sunday. I just need to move and hit more shuttles to improve agility and get better ‘feel’ for the shuttle.
I've once heard it said of top internationals too.. a coach once said he thinks axelson and peter gade while great players, just have a stiffer style of movement to the super relaxed players in asia, fine just different. I once sat with a friend that was a player from the phillipines, they had said many times that I was stiff but I didn't really understand what they meant. Then they showed me a player that they said played just like me. Watching them I understood more.. It wasn't so much about not being relaxed. (although some might describe it like that).. And not being relaxed can be one cause of what looks li stiffness. But it can be a stilted type of movement.. e.g. if the idea of how to do the shot is a bit too robotic, like robocop type movement, then you do it like that But with a better understanding of what the limbs should be doing.. then the movement is more smooth. If thinking about the subcomponents of a motion in isolation, and putting them together in an uncoordinated way, then it can look "stiff". But giving some thought to how it all coordinates into a smooth motion and practising that, can help resolve it. After the discussion with him.. I could demonstrate a movement to him that he described as stiff, and one he described as smooth. And then after that when he saw me play he said "not stiff". Another case that one might have described as "stiff", was the way I was doing smash defense some years back.. But it was easy to resolve. The issue was that learning smash defense focusses a lot on the arm/hand.. So a person can easily be a bit like a statue.. But sometimes one has to e.g. step with the racket foot or move the feet.. and thinking about retreiving those ones where one has to move the feet, made hte whole thing look more relaxed. I probably still am very stiff on some level.. but i'll "worry" about it if/when I am next told.. But I haven't been told i'm stiff since those mentioned occasions where I found those resolutions. Sometimes people see something.. and they put some word to it.. but you have to really dig to find out exactly what they are seeing and resolve it. (or rely on cues and hope that it resolves without you really consciously figuring out what they are seeing!)
Since my last post, Thursday was a rest day. Friday (yesterday) I did boxing and had a coaching session. At boxing , I worked on the double ended ball to develop my reactions. Today I did two hours of MT including my own conditioning - did some core and shoulder strengthening which is good for protecting against shoulder injuries in badminton. I do love the atmosphere of everyone working together and my gym is fairly friendly with casual chat. Last night’s badminton training session worked on some deficiencies 1) timing my lift defence from smashes. I needed to add a bit more forward forearm motion to make the shuttle travel as an aggressive type lift to put the rear opponent under pressure. 2) when I am the rear player receiving the third shot (server and receiver on left side of court) I noticed in my games I was having difficulty reaching forward diagonally to take third shots which were going fast down near the tramline past the service line. After a few practice shots, coach asked me to activate my left leg and use it to push my body weight after the split step when feeding. That helped a lot to take the downward direction shuttle earlier and push the shuttle down the tramline. 3) lastly we worked on smashes and coming in on the smash with crouch and 70-80% strength drives from mid court moving up to control the forecourt.
It appears that you have good opposition players to play with. Assuming the server was serving to the left side and moved forward to cover the net; receiver attacked the serve and pushed it down. In this situation, as the player in the back what was your position? Do you have a bias based on your partner's serve/opponents return/your strength or weakness to return or attack the third shot? This type of footwork is very difficult and more so for players like me that have not started when young. I had to work extra hard for the 6 directions; the sad part is you'll lose it very quickly when you stop practicing them.
I’m either biased evenly across the centre line and will assess how the opponent chooses according to his habit. With these games, it’s learning about the opponent’s favoured return of serves and adjusting the anticipation accordingly. Usually, my partner is using their most consistent serve, even if it is one that gets destroyed by the opponent. In order to reach those shots that go low and diagonally left or right in front of me, I need to really lower the centre of gravity down when my partner serves plus some anticipation based on previous serve/return of serves. Of course I can’t reach or do much with many of the shots if the opponent’s return of return of serve is good. I will describe a bit more in the next post.
I forgot to update on my tournament result. It was a doubles tournament and we won the tournament. Being fitter definitely helped over a day of matches. For the quarter finals, we spotted earlier that one of the players was very uncomfortable receiving on the forehand.We served a lot to the forehand at the beginning of the game and it stopped them getting into any sort of rhythm. I was very sharp on the return of serve seeing the shuttle very clearly pushing it fast to the centre line to the back player, sometimes same action to soft push it down on the servers arm pit, sometimes down the tramlines. The semifinal was one game to 31 points and we won 31-29. There were some excellent rallies. We have played these opponents before but lost out on close games. This was our first win so we were pretty happy about that. Same again with my return of serves - they were good but these opponents could cope with it better getting more shuttles back. I did strain my quadriceps slightly on the last match but tried not to let it show to the opponent. I put that down to the hall being very cold and having a long break of three hours from an intense semifinal. I did try to warm up by going outside for a walk and doing some activation exercises before the match. It was a different game altogether. I felt the skill level was not so high as the semifinal but they used their skills very effectively and were mentally stable in game play. The breakthrough came when we caught them with a bit of deception and got used to their pace and angle of smashes. After that, they didn’t have any other weapons to make us uncomfortable. Unfortunately, I recently developed an eye problem and cannot do sudden movements of the head. That means no badminton for a number of weeks.
All rules are the same except for the scoring system in the preliminary rounds. One game to 31 points and change ends at 16 points. The final was best of three games to 21 points.
I’m back training more seriously now since Christmas. I had been playing on and off in the intervening months since my last post but not very seriously. Why the change? My kid started with a new high level coach in Christmas and the coach said I should train to feel what she is feeling. Okayyyy, it’s a challenge but I start training again. I didn’t realise how far my level has dropped. My knowledge is still good, I can still play socially but to push myself to be mobile, have rhythm, have smooth footwork and body movement … I feel like I am walking through treacle. Unfortunately, I don’t accept my limitations too well and push the training a bit too hard getting frustrated. One good thing I learnt from gym training is needing to take an adequate rest time inbetween sets to try and maintain quality during the actual routine. I changed my racquet from 88D pro 4U to Arcsaber Pro 7 - heady heavy to even balance. I used to use head heavy to compensate for a lack of smash power. However , I am making changes to try opening up my shoulders better to use my body more effectively for the smash. Seems to be okay and my smash is getting a little steeper and straighter rather than floating at the end of its path. One thing about the smash that I am changing is to hit at a slightly lower hitting point but to come down on top of the shuttle a bit more. I never was great at this before. There are all sorts of new things to try and get a good habit such as the left arm swing, breath in, relax the fingers (ever seen Praveenn Jordan’s fingers when he raises the racquet to smash?), shoulders open. Today I was with a lower level coach. Basically he’s cheaper and I ask him to do mainly feeding to practice what I learn from the other coach Funny thing was we experimented the last few sets of smash practice with me trying to do a 70% power smash and the quality of the smash went up and became more consistent. Really down sharp to the ground. Tonight I have games so hopefully I can put better performances into those. I look so crap at the moment. Off court training, less gym but I found a class that does more plyometrics training in group classes. The exercises are not totally badminton specific but I like to believe they are helpful in keeping me using my calves and feet better on court rather than being a bit flat footed.
I've never heard it called that. Some call it opening out the chest. I think the technical term is shoulder horizontal abduction. eg this video shows the other way. Shoulder horizontal adduction. and many videos show both shoulder horizontal adduction and shoulder horizontal adduction sounds good.. sometimes a common coaching cue is to "reach up" but if reaching so high up then it's not possible to get the racket to swing down onto the shuttle! and often "reach up" really means arm reached out.. So not necessarily up. top players are often not reaching up as much as possible
I see how shoulder/scapula retraction with the horizontal shoulder abduction, would get a bit more "opening of the chest".
And I played crap as well. LOL. It was crap by my standards and a bit disappointing considering I trained in the morning. I was hoping to feel better on court with better movement but I didn’t feel much improvement. I was actually rushing around a bit beforehand with work and errands before the session which could have contributed to a poor performance even though I felt I did an adequate warm up. Another contributing reason was that I was too anxious to do better and couldn’t move smoothly - my muscles had too much tension from my desire to do better. Last night I played again - that’s two night in a row of games and four days in a row if training on court is included. Again, busy beforehand. Miss the start of the session. This time, I changed my warmup slightly. I did some left to right and right to left side steps with a jump. I used this exercise to train a bit of rhythm. Quick side steps at around 80-90% max speed and then the China jump a bit slower, landing on balance with feet in right position and repeat. I actually played much better. My movement around court was much better. Obviously not perfect but much improved from the night before which meant I could play longer rallies or take advantage of net positions earlier. I could play defensive and counter attack which is a big part of my game. Because I had a bit more time to think, I could apply tactics better. One of the opponents was quite tricky with fakes and wrong footing me the night before. Last night, it happened again but he was far less successful. I also worked out his shots are very good at the corners of the court but less consistent if the shuttle goes up the middle of the court. All in all, a very satisfactory evening of playing with better rhythm. Side note. I have a 120gm training racquet at home. I try to do a few practice shadow swings each day. Not full overhead swings but short swings practicing trying to time the squeeze of the last three fingers with the perceived striking point.
My performance is very up and down. It’s about five weeks after deciding to take badminton seriously again so I guess it’s to be expected. My movement got worse again. We did a video and I was surprised to see how restricted my movements were. My legs don’t really move very fully and I am very stiff. I just need to be on court more as it’s been five years away from challenging myself with higher level games. The video was good. @Pavlito79 , I saw myself pulling back my elbow really low on video and immediately thought of your video. I made a conscious decision to keep the elbow higher and my smashes immediately got better. For my games last night, I felt my movement was not as good as last week (could have been the food in my stomach) and my consistency was poor on some unpressured situations. Some of it is still adapting to the even balance Arcsaber Pro 7 from previous head heavy racquets. I think this process of improvement is going to take longer than I expected. There clearly is a long way to go. Coach suggested perhaps I am being unrealistic with the amount of improvement expected given my age and inevitable decline. I replied the objective is to shorten time to my maximum level. I already accept that I am not going to improve on my previous level.
It's much more of a battle at our age to improve, I have to go to the gym do weights to keep my strength and regular flexibility routines. I find that doing a lot of work with strokes to be consistent, anticipation, and positioning are key elements of my training these days. It's become more of a thinking game of where to position myself, my racket, and the shuttle given my opponents position and where the shuttle is. I used to rely on brute force and speed in my 20s, but these days I'm more aware on what's going on on the other side of the net and which stroke I need to play to either win the rally or continue it without putting myself into trouble. Backhand was one of the things I picked to work on as inevitably I end up playing more backhand strokes with the loss of movement. But I think I've learned more about badminton in my later years than my early ones. There's been some real eye openers from the coaches I've worked with. It's just a shame I don't have the body to go with the knowledge, though I'm still able to just about hold myself at low county level. Keep going with it as I'm sure you'll thank yourself 10 years from now. I think I read you're coming to London (?) so perhaps we can have a game.
It was a busy time in London. I managed to play three times in seven days and observed a lot more as my kid visited some sessions which I didn’t take part in. Shuttles in England fly a bit differently. The shuttles were still 78 speed but seemed slower and less crisp to the hit compared to what I am used to. I played a range of players from intermediate social players who haven’t had systematic training and upwards. Luckily a friend in HK introduced me to two high level groups - another friend who I didn’t know was around said basically I had London covered in terms of high level standard with these two groups. The friend who introduced me was quite interesting. I play with him in HK and think he is good but nothing special. He also happens to be in London and watching him play I saw a completely different player. He was like a beast on court. Maybe he’s back to his familiar environment in London. The top guys in the group I played with should be in the county gold tournaments - I can’t keep up with those. Despite my age, I think I can keep up bronze county level quite easily. There are two big areas to improve on. One is footwork speed - either I get faster or watch more carefully to anticipate. I am slightly late to the shuttle. I found I wasn’t intuitively able to read the shuttle so well with the higher level players here. In order to do better, I put more focus on watching the racquet face direction as it hit the shuttle. I also tried to time my breathing better to get better rhythm. I think I did play better by the end but it’s a learning process. Going back to HK, I think my focus will be keeping up with strength training, some plyos and oncourt agility footwork routines. Although my shots were inconsistent, I am not so worried about that because I feel that would get better if I am in position earlier.
This is much the same as what I do. Strength serves as a base for plyos for me so I spent some time just focusing on increasing strength while getting slower, but now I'm maintaining strength and doing the plyos and back to speed. For instance if I'm doing weighted squat jumps I'll do them at 20-30% of 1RM so increasing my squat gave me better explosive capacity. Took about 3 months of focus on just strength and not much else. Some books recommend not doing lower body plyo unless your squat 1RM is at least 1.5bw as it has limited benefits. I didn't find I was able to combine plyo training with strength training and it's not recommended to try and increase both at the same time. Also with age it's just so much noticably harder to recover for the next session, so if I did some intense plyo or on court training it wiped me out for the next strength session. I'm just about finding a balance now in the programming.
Rhythm rhythm rhythm. coach said I have a tendency to hold my breath. Actually it’s not just a tendency. I do it quite a lot and it affects my relaxation after a shot. The result is after three or four shots, I lose my timing. Coach said because that I haven’t played properly for five years (covid, family, knee injury), I have lost of the neural connections to my muscles. Therefore timing is off and relaxing at the right time is poor. Today, I tried adding something a bit extra in the warm up. As like most people, we do drives for warm up. To get rhythm, I do a little split step each time the partner hits the shuttle. This time I added taking a breath in with the split step and then exhaling as I hit the shuttle. I didn’t try to do too much with the shuttle itself except play 70% speed drives - just try to keep the shuttle going. The rest of the lesson was mainly learning more detailed defensive skills for my doubles. For example, being more clear on smash defense when to use the longer stroke for controlled placement or shorter tap strokes for drives and defensive lifts. Another nice one was defending on the right side of court (for a right hander) and then doing cross court drive or cross court lift when receiving a smash on the left side of the body. After that I went to the gym - it was a core class so a good workout for different muscles. I tried to control the timing of my inhalation and exhalation to have better rhythm with each rep. Tomorrow is a rest day.
I have not tried 1RM. I am a little conservative because I worry a bit about injury. I do a squat with body weight and just it a bit. Unfortunately I am not really following a specific program but just go to classses and see how my body feels on the day. I remember when first starting small group gym classes (baseline at zero), I would be completely wiped out even after two months. I went to the Muay Thai classes to help build up fitness. I can’t really comment on how much strength you need with plyos as I focused on strength mainly previously. I have done 30mins of strength training (being more on maintenance and not increasing), rest 15mins , then on to plyos. Felt it was okay. We can play badminton for two hours with intermittent breaks agree about the slower recovery. I’m trying to eat rather soon after the sessions finish. My weight has gone up after less exercise and eating more in England. I ate bigger breakfasts and more cottage cheese and yogurts (expensive in HK). I have neglected adding extra protein supplements and maybe that can be added in. I don’t think I will be losing weight soon. LOL
