High Performance Badminton

INTRODUCTION

Badminton is a sport like no other and it is one of the most popular in the world. In some Asian countries, it is in the top ten sports, while in Europe it is well-established and played in schools and at sports clubs. Badminton challenges sports such as golf, cycling and basketball in participation figures. Historically, the top performers had come from Europe, especially Denmark, England and Sweden, but in more recent times - since the mid 1980s - the Asian nations have closed the gap and overtaken the European players. The leading nations currently include China, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan and Denmark.

At the highest level, badminton is a fusion of power, speed, strength, agility, precision, athleticism, mentality and many more superlatives than we would care to mention in a short introduction about the fastest racket sport in the world.

When played at other performance levels, the nature of the sport is no less challenging and delivers competitive environments for all ages, from young juniors to senior masters.

While all sports at the top level require high levels of personal endeavour, the world's top badminton players are without doubt among the fastest athletes in the world. They have the ability to cover short distances, from the middle of the court to intercept a shuttle, at incredible speeds for the duration of a match, which can often last for more than an hour.

The movements involved in badminton are so dynamic that it requires very organized footwork forwards, backwards, sideways and diagonally with control and speed, linking it to a high level of agility. Players need to jump multi-directionally and recover, as well as reaching low to retrieve shuttles hit downwards rapidly by opponents. Players need to be very powerful while maintaining a light body weight to make fast, explosive agile movements, stopping and changing direction for each shot played, and then recovering to be ready for the next shot.

As previously mentioned, badminton is a global sport. In many Asian countries, it is their number one sport with top players being well known and recognized when they walk down the street.

Sport Governance

The sport is governed internationally by the Badminton World Federation (BWF), an organization based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

'The BWF is empowered by the International Olympic Committee and the BWF's 180 members to govern the sport of badminton worldwide.'

www.bwfbadminton.org

The BWF has five continental bodies, each of which is the governing body for the sport in that continent.

The Badminton Europe Confederation is based in Denmark. Its role is to lead on the regulation, promotion, management and development of badminton on the Continent. It was founded in 1967 and now has fifty-two member associations.

The Sport

Badminton is an Olympic sport, making its competitive debut in 1992. In many respects this involvement alone altered the structure of the sport and raised the standard of so many countries. At a development level, many countries are starting to play the game and increase its popularity and awareness. The BWF membership has risen noticably since badminton entered the Olympic arena, up to the 180 member associations we see today. At the performance end of the spectrum there are far more countries competing in the top level tournaments and successful players are now coming from many more nations. For example, when Carolina Marin from Spain won the women's singles in the World Championships in 2014, this title had only been won by a European woman once since 1978 (Camilla Martin of Denmark in 1999). Prior to this win by Marin, Spain had not been considered a country that could produce players to challenge at the top of the sport.

Badminton has become a highly popular spectator sport and catches people's imagination whenever they watch it for the first time. On more than one occasion since it first appeared in the 1992 Olympics, badminton has seen viewing figures rival the blue ribbon event in athletics, the men's 100 metres final. This is mainly down to the popularity of the sport in Asia, but also pays tribute to the advancements the sport has seen in other parts of the world.

The Fastest Racket Sport

Badminton is the fastest racket sport. Advancements in television broadcasting and technology now bring us some amazing facts and statistics about sports. The speed at which a shuttle can travel off a player's racket head is far higher than that seen in the other racket sports, although many non-badminton people struggle to believe this fact.

The high level of physicality of players has enabled scientists to increase their knowledge about the biomechanical functioning of the body and link this to the advancements in technology in rackets and strings. It is a combination of all the factors above that has made badminton such a high-octane sport compared with others.

Tennis and squash are probably the sports closest in similarity to badminton, but a difference is noticable in the speed at which a shuttle can be hit compared with a tennis ball or squash ball.

• Tennis shows top recorded speeds of 263.4kmh/163.7mph for a serve (Samuel Groth (Australia) at an ATP event in Busan, South Korea, in May 2012). (www.wikipedia.com)
• Cricket has recorded the fastest bowl of 161.3kmh/100.23mph by Shoaib Akhtar (Pakistan), during the cricket World Cup in February 2003. (www.wikipedia.com)
• Squash recorded the fastest shot at a speed of 284.8kmh/177mph by Cameron Pilley (Australia), set in Amsterdam in April 2015. (www.squashinfo.com)
• Badminton's fastest smash during gameplay has been recorded at 332kmh/206mph by Fu Haifeng (China). However, in experimental testing conditions, Tan Boon Heong (Malaysia) has recorded a smash of 493kmh/306.4mph. (www.guinessworldrecords.com)

Badminton singles or doubles at the top level could be considered and viewed as a highspeed, ferocious, gladiatorial battle combined with the finesse, control and touch of an artist at work, and linked to the strategy of two chess grand masters in a world final. Tournaments throughout the world see matches lasting from a minimum of around 11 minutes, if the two players are noticably different in standard, to some that may reach around two hours, if players are close in ability and physicality.

In this book, we delve into what is required of your body and mind to become a higher level performance player, regardless of your current standard. The book provides a broad-based view of technical and tactical perspectives and a chapter covering the considerations for players who are training for performance levels. Additionally, we have gained insights from some of England's top players over the last two decades on what they did to get the best out of themselves.

For the Player

Training methods and programmes will be covered to highlight what players must undertake if they are to achieve elite performance levels. The mental approach to the sport is also known to be a vital part of any player's make-up. Hence, a chapter will look at how players must be single-minded, committed and motivated to achieve success by taking the responsibility for their training and performances while working hard and learning with and from their coaches and teams. Players must be inquisitive about new methods and also be able to stand back and see what works well for them.

For the Coach

The coach's role is to assist a player by nurturing their developmental needs. They must have a vision of what the player needs to work on to get to the next level and then to their optimum level. A good coach will have a strong drive for their player to achieve their full potential. A coach will need to understand their player's individual requirements and deliver them in a way that is personal to a player's needs at that time, remembering that every player is different. Successful coaches have programmes that are player-centred. They have a passion to be consumed by the sport and are as inquisitive as the players with whom they work. They are cool headed and thoughtful, so can provide their players with the correct coaching in the heat of battle and when preparing for it!

All these skills a coach has to acquire to maximize a player's potential will be outlined in the book.

Are You up to the Challenge?

The authors of this book have been involved in the performance side of playing and coaching badminton for a combined total of more than seventy years. Therefore, they have a clear understanding that every player is an individual and that every coach or person involved could have a different perspective and viewpoint. This is, after all, an individual performance sport!

The exciting challenge ahead of the reader, whether they be a player, coach, parent or part of a support team, is to take the framework of ideas and knowledge in this book and adapt it to themselves and their players to make it work for them as they move upwards in performance levels.

It must be remembered that in performance sport every player is different, with varying requirements and abilities; the intention of this book is for it to be used as a guideline and give thought-provoking ideas to enhance a badminton player's performance.

The world's top players are all trying to be the best in their disciplines (singles, doubles or mixed). They all have varying styles and hitting techniques, they have different training programmes that are tailored for their individual requirements, and their mental and tactical approaches will not be the same. However, they...