VIDEO Strength Training at Home or „On the Road“
Strength training is best to be done in a reasonable equipped weight room - but most players do not access - at least full time - to one, especially on the road it can be sometimes tricky to stay in shape or in the process. However fundamental strength training for Badminton can be done with little to no equipment.
The idea about the following video came up somewhere on the road when traveling after a workshop at Athletes’ Performance facility in Phoenix on the road to Grand Canyon - with motels on the way providing no weight room I wanted to do some strength training - and put on the camera in the lovely scenery of Sedona.
For Badminton especially the deep squat is a fundamental exercise - not only it is an important movement pattern, but it provides good core and lower extremity training covering all important leg muscles for Badminton. To strengthen both chest and triceps muscles - important for generating power in strokes - as well as working to prone trunk as well as shoulder stabilizers the simple push up is the perfect exercise. To protect the shoulder, working on both posture, supine trunk and upper back muscles variations of inverted rowing are the way to go. Before I talk about how to put them into a program, see the video first.
The questions is now how to use the exercise in the best way. Of course it depends on each individual - but I am not talking about numbers but more important concepts now.
If you are a beginner, life is pretty easy. You adapt to merely every stimulus that you put on your body - the only thing you have to have in mind is building up a foundation first before advancing to a more intense program. So just circle the exercises for two to three times doing between 10-20 reps with a controlled tempo.
If you are advanced with already build up an solid base, you have to decided which road you go. If it’s still building up muscles you have to take time under tension (TUT) under a closer look - work every exercise three to four times with an duration each of 40 seconds - whereas you should be nearly locally (=the muscles you are working) exhausted. How to do this? Simple. Just use slower eccentrics (=going down slowly, e.g. 4 seconds) and / or put in some isometrics (=hold a certain position for 1-3 seconds). This will for sure be hard work for most players. I suggest, if you really are an advanced player to use an explosive concentric movement - in sports as in Badminton you have to be fast - the strength training program you are on should reflect that in a way.
What if you consider yourself more than advanced? Then ask your coach for specific advice. That is what coaches are for. Also - if one the road try to find a gym, ask for a free admission or ask for a daily rate. IF you too, are somewhere between big mountains and dry deserts - here is what you can do. To work on your foundation, see above but to more sets and reps. To build up some muscles, especially in the off-season, go for the advanced option and be sure to work slowly concentric with an iso-hold at the end range in the rowing exercise and the push up. If you are in between tournaments or matches you have to consider regeneration time - if there is enough time, use the exercise to remind to body what he should be doing - working on explosiveness and power. You can than perform 3-6 sets of 4-8 reps working very explosiv. For the push up and row do as stated before but go „all in“ for power an the concentric way up and stop at 4-8 reps so that each rep is 100%. With the squat you can convert it into jumps - only go it a half squat position and then perform jumps - with multiple options here - going NCM, CM up to continuous jumping.
As you see - a lot is possible - around only three exercises - you only need to know where is the start and where do you want to go - the rest falls into place.
Diemo Ruhnow
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About the author:
Diemo Ruhnow is currently working as Head National Coach Doubles for the German Badminton Federation. In his free time he writes for his websites http://www.badminton-training.com (English), http://www.badminton-training.de (German) and other Badminton journals.
