BADMINTON

Introduction

I have decided design a training program to improve the components of fitness required in the game of Badminton one of the most famous games in the world today. It is the most popular sport in many regions. The program is intended to improve skills of badminton as well as the components of fitness that are needed if you want to be famous badminton player.

The Components of fitness:

1.        Muscular Endurance: Strength and endurance together combine to be muscular endurance - The ability to execute several repetitions against a given opposition for a long period of time. A player in badminton repeatedly uses his muscular movements for moving, hitting shuttle etc. the most important muscles for player in badminton are legs and hand muscles, which continuously move for the various movements in the game.

2.        Strength/Power: Power enables, athlete, or a player to apply the largest amount of their maximal strength in the shortest period of time. Badminton involves faster movements and higher power outputs than are found in maximal strength exercises. Player might not be able to apply large amounts of strength, if they are unable to apply their strength rapidly. This is why power is one of the important components of fitness.

3.        Cardiorespiratory: Cardiorespiratory fitness is the ability of the circulatory and respiratory systems to supply oxygen to all muscles especially skeletal muscles during sustained physical activity. We all know that badminton is a fast and long game (proper game), which requires a lot of vigorous exercises. Oxygen and respiration are highly required for the game and so, I think it is one of the basic requirements of badminton players.

Training Program:

Muscular Endurance: muscles tear and wear is one of the main problems for each player. So we need to train our muscles to withstand more weights, and efforts, and movements.

Power: the power programmes should include larger force applied at higher speeds and for longer distances.

Cardiorespiratory: another name for aerobics, need exercises, which will increase the blood circulation and breathing rate and controls.

Circuits are great programmes for trainings as they can be repeated for long time without stopping and as per required:

Description

1.        Jogging on spot: it is as easy as it sounds, we jog on spots

2.        Bow and arrow stretching for arms: when one arm opens in the chest level, the other hand closes(bends towards chest)

3.        Both wrist rotations in both direction: we rotate our wrists right and left directions

4.        Head Rotation in both direction: we rotate our head our right and left direction in a circular path

5.        Squats: we bend our knees, sit on our toes, and bend our body like we are sitting

6.        sit-ups on a rod and lift weights: the player anchors the knee back on a long rod and balance our whole body, and hold dumbbells and do regular sit-ups (training, hand muscles and stomach for movements)

7.        dance on spot: do any dance which includes hand and leg movements

8.        Do breathing exercises like in Yoga:  take air in with one nostril and release with other. Hold breath for few seconds before breathing in or out.

9.        Power Jumps: jump high with as much force possible with our legs

10.     Kick front and back: kick front and back with both legs

11.     Move right and left in the same place: shift right and left on a line, with legs wide apart as the stance in badminton.

12.     Freestyle hand movements: hold our elbow with our finger and move thee complete hands front rotation and back.

Each of the steps should be done for 1- 1.5 minutes, but each exercise should be given equal timing to train ourselves equally. And less than 1 minute won’t give high training for each exercise.

Evaluation

After making the steps, I tried them. The hardest of them was the sit-ups on rod with weight. We need to be trained properly to do sit-ups, before we can do that, as guided by the gym instructor of my apartment, Taman Rasuna. The yoga moves were easy but we need to hold the breath for long in order to train quickly. The first 4-5 steps are for warming up of body and the rest for proper training. The rotational hand movements, and muscular movements, improved my muscular ability to hit harder shots, the jogging and moving right to left also made my movement in the game faster. My reflex also increased due to active brain and body. I had tried the exercises one circuit each day for a week and the results were good, except for the sit-ups.