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I know of a lot of people who have injured themselves while playing badminton, and some of them question whether or not they should keep playing. I have sympathy for those people and I know how it feels, because I’ve been in that kind of situation myself before. Most people play badminton to get exercise, make friends, and have fun, but many don’t realize the intensity of badminton and the large amount of physical exertion needed to play this sport. A lot of players want to improve their skills quickly and fail to see that trying to do too much too quickly will increase their chances of injury.
I remember years ago when I first started playing badminton. I was in love with the sport, but I had little badminton knowledge at that point of time, and played the game too physically. After just a short time, I started getting pains all over and had to resort to buying lots of wrist bands, elbow pads, waist belts and knee pads etc. in order to continue playing. Looking back now, I think I sort of looked liked a mummy back then, and I can’t help not laugh at myself.
Obviously, injuries have a profound effect on how a person plays badminton. When I was injured, I really wanted to recover quickly, and also wanted to know how to avoid injuring myself in the future. To accomplish these goals, I read many books and asked many people for their advice, and over the years I’ve learned many things about preventing injury, and I’m here to share this knowledge with you.
There are many causes to injuries, such as not warming up enough, having the wrong posture, or playing too much etc. Many of these injuries stem from the fact that our muscles are not strong enough, flexible enough, and/or don’t have enough endurance. When a person tries to play too hard, it’s really easy to lose track of the situation and get injured.
In order to continue playing badminton, I made a vow to myself to improve my physical fitness, and say goodbye to the pain. When I’m not playing on the court or studying badminton skills, I started to practice net plays, short serves at home and practice in front of a mirror to improve my posture. I also gradually start to train myself physically. In the beginning I only had some small dumbbells, and after a short time I knew I had to get some new equipment to fit my needs. I eventually collected lots of items, including heavier dumbbells, a home gym, a treadmill, a sit-up bench, and a multi-use weight bench. Not only do I benefit from these equipments, my son has also gotten the habit of lifting weights, which is great.
Before I started weight training, my knees would hurt from playing badminton and I felt pain when I climbed stairs. In order to strengthen my knees, first I started doing squats with dumbbells, which helped quite a bit, but I found that doing leg extensions on the home gym had the most effect. A leg extension is where a person its upright on a chair with the knee bent at 90 degrees, with a cushioned bar in front of the lower legs connected to the weights. The person will then try extend the legs so that they are straight, lifting the bar and weights in the process. After months of training, I now lift 120lbs (around 54.5kg), and I try to spend 15 minutes each day doing four sets of this exercise. Each set consists of 20 repetitions. Nowadays I don’t wear knee support anymore and I can change directions, start, stop and jump better than before.
In order to alleviate elbow pains, I do push-ups and also use dumbbells. I use lightweight dumbbells and practice swinging them like I would with a racket. I started using 5lbs (2.3 kg) dumbbells and worked up to 15lbs (7kg) dumbbells for this exercise, and I do 3-4 sets of around 40-50 reps.
Arm and wrist strength is very important in badminton. If your arms aren’t strong enough, then it’s much easier to sustain injury. I exercise my arms mainly by doing bicep curls with 15-20 lbs dumbbells and do 3-4 sets of around 30 reps each. I use both the normal and reverse grip (palm facing outward when arm is curled) for this exercise. You can do this while sitting on the couch and watching the TV.
The abdominal and waist muscles are also very important for badminton, particularly when hitting clears and smashing. I exercise these muscles by spending 10 minutes a day on my inclined sit-up bench. I do two sets of 120 sit-ups for a total of 240 sit-ups. Nowadays I don’t have to wear my waist support belt anymore, and my six-pack is starting to show.
Badminton is a sport that involves a lot of sudden starts and stops, which puts strain on the ankles. The best way I know of to strengthen the ankles is to do calve raises. You do this by standing on the edge between two areas of slightly different elevation. Stand on the higher area but have your heels off the edge and extend your calves by trying to do a tip-toe on the edge. You can do this exercise with one or both legs, and with or without weights.
Cardiovascular fitness is important in almost all sports, and one can easily improve this by jogging regularly indoors or outdoors. You can run at a constant speed for an extended period of time or change speeds. Make sure that you don’t put too much strain on your body though.
Lastly, in order to improve your jumping ability, you can do weight bearing exercises such as lunges or squats coupled with some basketball and jump rope.
Because I spent all this time improving my physical health, now I don’t have to use any of those protection equipment I had before, and most if not all of my pains are gone, making playing badminton an even more enjoyable experience for me.
Here’s a last piece of advice for everybody. If you are injured, no matter how small the injury is, stay off the courts and rest until you are absolutely sure that you have recovered. A small injury may lead to a more serious injury if you keep playing. Sometime you have to curb your will to win in order to preserve your health. I hope that all of you injured players out there recover quickly and start exercising, so you can stay injury-free, and continue to enjoy this wonderful sport.