The best way to improve
Today, I’m going to talk about the best way to improve your badminton game. It’s not how to hit backhand. It’s not how to smasher harder. The most important thing in badminton is “footwork”.
Regardless of how hard your smash, or how deceptive your shots are, you will not get to perform those if you are on the other side of the court 
On the other hand, if you can get there earlier, you have more time to pick and choose where to attack, plus you are going to be in more balance posture after that shot, versus running to a bird on the other side hitting the bird with outreach arm and let momentum carries you out of the court. Getting to the bird early benefit you two folds!
So how to practice to improve the footwork? Running the court is the way to go. If you watch badminton single match, you will see that they almost making steps in the exact same way to reach either side of the court all the time. They practically almost step in the same place that they step before. They don’t shuffle they feet too much, so the movement is efficient and elegant. It’s all muscle memory. That’s how. Practically speaking though, it’s pretty hard for weekend warrior like most of us to get time alone on the court, just to run the court.
Another way to improve your footwork, or to precisely saying it, to improve “getting there” is to loose weight. No kidding. I tried that and it works. I gained weight after having a child and didn’t have much time to exercise. I noticed that my game suffer in many dimensions. I reacted slower to the smash. My touch was not as sharp. My friends improved. Those I couldn’t do anything about it. It was about playing time. However, I decide to see if I can improve my “getting there” by loosing weight, and it works wonderfully. I can start off my toe much faster. I don’t loose balance after I hit a bird. I can stop on a dime, and change direction quicker. I can hang back for a hard smash, allowing more react time, knowing that I can still go to the net to retrieve a drop if I have to. Try that and let me know.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Hey there,
I was just wondering what kind of activities you tried out for losing weight? I really need to shed some weight. I play badminton like 4 times a week, around 2 hours each time (total time and not just time on the court) and that doesn’t really leave me with much of a time on those days. So I have like 2-3 days in a week I can allott for the losing weight program. Any ideas what I could do? Thanks.
October 29th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
I find that the best way to lose weight is to control what you eat and how much. It’s going to be tough at first, but once you get it going, you have to keep it going. Don’t even say to yourself like “well, I already exercise and eat little today. May be I can slack off and eat this (things you like) as a reward”. Once you start thinking like that, you will gain weight back soon.
From your activities, it seems rather a lot already. I personally don’t add extra exercise much, but rather control my intake.