From the category archives:

Badminton Articles

Are You Eating Your Way To Defeat? (Poor Preparation For Badminton Tournaments and Matches Usually Results In Poor Performance)

I’ve received many questions about preparation for tournaments and matches.
One of the key questions I’m asked time and again is about maintaining energy levels during a tournament or for an evening match when you’ve been at work all day and have little time to eat and travel to your match.After all, if you’re running out [...]

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What Are Your Badminton Goals in 2010?

Goal setting. Most of us have heard of the phrase. Some of us even know what it really means. And yet, even though it’s one of the most powerful tools in our lives, so few of us actually use it.
Most people think of goals on or around January 1st. “I’ll go on a diet and [...]

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How To Vary The Pace of Your Badminton To Outwit Your Opponent

No matter what standard of badminton you’re playing, there comes a time in a game when you need to try something different in order to outwit or outmanoeuvre your opponent.
Perhaps the easiest and most effective way of achieving this is to either inject pace or reduce the pace of the rally. This usually has the [...]

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The Basics Most Badminton Club Players Choose To Ignore – And They Wonder Why Their Scores Don’t Improve!

Whenever I’m asked to visit a club for a coaching evening, I ask the organiser to canvass the club members and give me a list of the areas they would like me to work on.
Overall, I’m met with similar responses, which are:
Men – smash and backhand
Women – clearing to the back and returning a man’s [...]

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More On Slow Shuttles – It’s Happening Again!

Last night, I visited a badminton club in Widnes, after receiving an invitation from one of the players. The player found me through Yonex UK website and I took the Yonex range of racquets for the players to test.
I also agreed to provide coaching on the night.
First off, I’d like to thank the [...]

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More On Incorrect Shuttle Speeds – It’s Becoming A Hot Topic!

I played a match last Wednesday. For the first time the club used the correct speed shuttles. Guess what happened?
As virtually all the players were used to playing with slow shuttles, a high percentage of rallies ended with the shuttle being hit out of the rear court. Only a couple of players managed to adjust [...]

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Why Egos and Incorrect Information About String Tensions In Badminton Could Be Doing More Harm Than Good

Imagine the scene. A young player is chatting to an experienced player at your club about racquets. Invariably at some point the discussion moves on to the subject of string tension. “My racquets are strung at 30lbs” says the experienced player, “the tighter the string the better – that’s what you want.”
Now this scenario has [...]

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Why Do We Ask The Impossible From Women Partners at Badminton Mixed Doubles?

A high percentage of games played at club, league, county and international level are mixed doubles. It’s become a favourite in clubs and it’s probably the only sport at Olympic level where men and women complete together.
What still amazes me when I watch mixed doubles in club and league is the inability of some men [...]

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Why Incorrect Badminton Shuttle Speeds Are Killing Skill Levels

As a player and a coach I’ve often wondered how top flight players have generated such amazing power. It’s a combination of many factors including timing of the shot, getting behind the shuttle to hit it, body-weight transfer, string tension, conditioning/training and the athletes natural muscle fibre combinations to name but a few.
There is one [...]

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Badminton Training Recommendations

I recently read a post on the www.badders.com forum & responded with my badminton training recommendations.  The following article details the full thread to date, including my responses which are in blue:
“Having just read the latest badminton magazines recommended pre-season training, I was wondering what peoples thoughts were? …if anyone knows where the information was sourced [...]

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Which Brand of Shuttles ?

I’m an avid tester of shuttles as I do a lot of coaching. I’ve been coaching for over 20 years and playing for over 30 years.
There’s no doubt that shuttles were better 30 years ago. Leading the pack then was RSL. In those days RSL were manufactured in UK. Sadly, RSL shuttles today are a [...]

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