Kick-start your fitness resolution

Badminton Training 102 —Agility and Speed Training

There’s no time like January for a new start, for setting higher goals and actually getting on track to achieve them. If your goal is to get fit, be more active, play sports or improve your game and increase your training, agility and speed training will definitely help you.

Improving speed is important for most sports, overall fitness or even running. Refer to this post to learn about body conditioning, the first step. The next step is improving your speed.

Agility training helps you improve your reaction time.

WHAT is agility training?

Agility is the ability to move quickly and switch directions easily. It involves both physical abilities and mental agility to adapt and respond to spatial stimuli — to think and draw conclusions quickly; intellectual acuity. So you can speed up, stabilize yourself and be more nimble on the court.

WHY should I do it?

Advanced players often use directional shots to outscore their opponents. So you have to run rapidly and repeatedly on the court to intercept shots. Shuttlecocks have very short flight times and players get barely a couple of seconds to strike. Developing agility and speed gives you the advantage of quickness and longer reaction time to hit the shuttle.

Although a few people appear to be naturally quick and agile, this is an acquired skill.

HOW to start?

For beginners, there are simple physical activities you can start with like jogging, skipping, and sprinting.

Once you are familiar with these drills you can try a combination drill by doing all of these consecutively. This is similar to the movement required on the court during matches.

JOGGING

• Boosts stamina & increases endurance
• Helps you play longer to outlast your opponent
• By paying attention to the loudness of your footfall, you can determine the heaviness of your steps.
• Heavy steps lead to inefficient footwork on the court
• Practice light steps to improve footwork
• Increases your ability to move around the court continuously and effortlessly

SKIPPING

• Improves calf muscles
• Helps you develop the ‘bounce’ sensation to quickly spring into action and reach the shuttle
• Can be used to stimulate movement similar to a match with side-to-side, forward and backward jumps, sudden acceleration and slow speed drills.

SPRINTING

• The most common way to increase your overall speed
• 50m or 100m continuous dash drills
• Interval training — 10 seconds sprint, 10 seconds walk & repeat
• Shuttle runs increase speed & agility and help you increase the rate of switching directions

COMBINATION DRILLS

• Helps improve speed and balance
• Combine running, jogging, and skipping in unique ways like cross-court sprints paired with backward jogging, shuttle runs with skipping and so on.

The main focus of the drill should be speed and pacing. There are many combinations of exercises and drills to build up stamina and speed.

• Lateral plyometric jumps
• Forward running, High-knee drills
• Lateral running, side-to-side drills
• Dot drills
• Jump box drills

Professional players have rigorous training regimes.

These are isolated drills that help improve your speed for better footwork while playing. All you need is a good pair of badminton shoes so you don’t injure your feet.

Are you ready to work on your performance? Check out the Li-Ning Badminton store to redefine your experience.

Sprints, jumps and drills replicate real matches.