Hi all, I've attached a link to a short clip of myself doing a few ~70% power smashes. I was hoping to get some feedback on my smash technique, specifically around the swing technique (ie. wind up, contact, follow through). Watching better players, they effortlessly smash with compact swings, making a nice "pop" noise even without using full power (ie. minimal body rotation). Hoping to understand the gaps in my technique. Background about me - I've been playing badminton for 10 years now, never really had formal training, learned mostly from videos and forums like this one. My smash has always been one of the weaker parts of my offensive game vs. my drops/deception. Few things I've tried: * having a really relaxed grip - definitely helps, but still doesn't give me as much power as I see other players get * being behind the shuttle - i generally resort to dropping/clearing when i'm not behind shuttle, but maybe i need to be even further behind the shuttle Any insights would be appreciated, thanks! (you can slow down with playback options in settings)
This. You could probably improve your court movement to optimise your hitting point but a big part is that you have a large swing rather than a compact swing. When you get ready to smash, you bring the racquet head behind you and pause it there. The distance between the head of the racquet and your body is really quite large hence a large swing. The pause doesn’t help either. You are dropping the racquet behind, pausing and then initiating the stroke forward. What you should be doing is dropping the racquet behind and then initiating the stroke forward I.e. minimising that pause to as short a time as possible. Your left arm could help better. At the moment it prepares vertically upwards with elbow almost locked - if you see most players (apart from Lauren Smith), it actually prepares a little more relaxed and slightly forward of the body. The left arm stretches forward towards the opposite player and then goes down recoiling into the body. It looks like you hold the racquet a bit tight all the way through the stroke. All in all, IMO, your primary focus should be on improving the overhead swing preparation with the left arm being better positioned (it will help the body rotation) and getting a proper compact swing. Then see how it goes before trying other changes.
For the follow through, I don't see much acceleration of your arm/racket. The swing speed pretty much determines the speed of the smash. Do you feel yourself flexing your forearm, squeezing fingers right before impact?
Thank you @Cheung for your feedback. Will give your suggestions a try the next time I play. Think the feedback about better leveraging my left arm is actually something I've received before but have forgotten about. @waterboy Hmm, while I make a conscious effort to flex my forearm and squeeze as hard as I can, it sometimes feels as though power is not effectively transferred to the shuttle. Maybe it has to do with what Cheung mentioned around me having a large swing.
Would you say your racket is a good weight/balance for you? From my own experience, I've used rackets that were too heavy which lead to me subconsciously changing my swing and being unable to generate decent force with my forearm and fingers. And it looks like your swing leads to slicing the shuttle on contact (most evident on 2nd smash).
There’s quite a lot of small details to optimise here. However, I hesitate to mention these because if you manage to change your stroke to a compact one and optimise the left arm position and motion, you might have a new starting point with respect to grip, forearm and supination.
Re compact swing, what is meant is more explosiveness in a shorter duration of time. Don't shorten your swing without making it more explosive or you won't achieve anything Sent from my SM-S918W using Tapatalk
I'm currently using the 4U Astrox 100zz and find the weight/balance pretty good. I've always used head-heavy rackets maybe to compensate for my smash technique.
Notice your left leg. The heel is practically flat on the ground. You can gain at least six inches of height if you were to activate your calves and feet to push your pelvis and shoulders (and therefore the body) up to the shuttle more. However, I still feel the priority is to sort out the basic overhead stroke technique and try to achieve the acceleration in the racquet head that @waterboy and @visor mentioned. There is a training exercise I see sometimes done in China with shadow swings and a short length (about 18 inches) of ribbon tied to the tip of the frame. That might help you observe and train the whipping action better.
It seems reasonable to you stick with it. My coach would have shouted at me for letting it drop that low. That's what made it higher, someone shouting at me to catch it higher and use my forearm more. Coach Han does this sort of thing to his students. You are leaning backwards when catching it and using your swing to generate power. If you try to catch it as high as possible it will teach you its own lesson. Watch. Second video 4.52 to 5.10 is what my coach told me over and over again. 1.50-1.57.. is the lesson. Learn how to generate power first without swing then bring the swing back into it.
The swing doesn't look good and the result isn't good either. Like one of the first things that is taught to people learning overheads, is to prepare the racket. Whether that is a high prep and thus small swing(common. nowadays). Or a low prep thus longer swing. (Then at a later stage they might be told they can do it well even without a set prep). Badmintoninsight have a video that has been mentioned here before, that shows a high prep from Axelson. They show high racket prep with two 90 degree angles. See post #432 here https://www.badmintoncentral.com/fo...uld-i-start-first.184410/page-22#post-2850976 I mention the badmintoninsight video and 90 degrees there. The things written in that post I wrote there is a bit complex but the thing for you to look at in that post are the pictures. Showing racket prep. That's a racket prep for a compact swing. Some screenshots shown there also include timeframes. So you can see their swing in action in game. You can also use slow mo feature to examine their swings. It looks like you mean to do a swing from a high prep so a fairly small swing but you have a very wrong idea about what that looks like! Eg if you threw something the way you are there, it's be a bad throw. You are meant to be doing a throwing action. Another way a swing can be shortened besides high racket prep, is having minimal follow through, by making it whippy. Or by getting power by a kind of deceleration. But you could just focus on racket prep first. Ellis / Smith vs Mairs / Moore (XD, R16) - Yonex Dutch Open 2017 Badminton Europe also They mention two 90 degree angles.. though i'd say with the elbow far back maybe a bit under 90 degrees under the armpit otherwise it's uncomfortable.. and his may be a bit below 90. There is a thing to be understood as well to protect your shoulder that the further back the elbow is the less high it can be. Hence a late forehand is taken low and out to the side. If your contact point was high and behind you then without jumping back or taking it as a late forehand, (wide), you'd do your shoulder in from too much shoulder flexion.
