Training on a bigger court

Discussion in 'Techniques / Training' started by SSSSNT, Mar 15, 2019.

  1. SSSSNT

    SSSSNT Regular Member

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    We all know about training with a heavier racket in order to gain some benefits when going back to normal racket.

    What about training on a bigger court? We all play on a standard badminton court. What if we increase the size of the court by, say, 20% and play all of our matches there for a few months. Do you think we'll be better once we adjust back to normal court?

    *Do note that this is only a half serious musing.
     
  2. ChanKC

    ChanKC Regular Member

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    For me I think the disadvantages outweigh the advantages of training on a larger court.

    The larger court in theory will force you to take longer strides and improve your footwork; however you will gain some muscle memory in how large each step needs to be to reach the corners. This will be detrimental when you go back to a standard size court as you will end up over-stepping and arriving to the shuttle with it too close to your body and your arm not at the optimal position to play a good shot.

    The other aspect is when playing your shots, assuming the court is wider and longer your clears will now go out and wide in the standard-sized court.


    So really I think it is better to keep practicing on a "normal" court as the conditions in which you train and play are the same.
    Assuming you want to speed up your footwork and court coverage the best way to do this would be multi-shuttle feeding rather than changing the court size in my opinion :)
     
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  3. Rob3rt

    Rob3rt Regular Member

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    Bad idea, in my opinion. Only will mess with your judgement of the lines and so on.
     
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  4. Budi

    Budi Regular Member

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    Using heavier racket is to train our arm & wrist muscle. So when we are able to swing a heavy racket, we would be able to perform better on lighter racket. Anime version ilustration is Naruto anime Rocklee character/ Dragon Ball Son Goku. They use additional weight on their suit to train their muscle. When on serious fight, they take it off & able to move faster & stronger. Yes it just cartoon, but the concept is the same.

    Other hand for larger court. What is your purpose for this training? If its for stamina, there is other way to increase stamina. If its footwalk, different size of court would ruin your body memory to remember court size & your position. Try to think this. When you playing, what did you do to know where is your position & tell that the bird would be out or in? Im sure you wont see the surounding by looking left to right down on ur feet, or the court line. Your eye would focus on opponent & the bird. What you do is your body movement memorize & make a picture of where are you on your mind.

    If its speed you want to achieve, there is also other method to do so.
     
  5. Borkya

    Borkya Regular Member

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    Yep, I agree, a larger court will just mess up your judgement and throw off your footwork.

    That's one thing with playing with older players who have been playing regularly for 30+ years. They are so familiar with the court all they need to do is see the speed of your shuttle and they know, with hawkeye precision, if it is going to be out or *just* on the line. Just because they've been playing so long and know the lines so well.
     
  6. MSeeley

    MSeeley Regular Member

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    I don't think a larger court is a good idea, but I do like some similar training methods when learning to play singles. These are just one off drills you do for a few minutes every now and then on a standard badminton court (I saw them on the bestoncourt website a few years ago):
    1. The player working has to defend the full width of the doubles court, but is only allowed to hit back into the singles court vs 2 feeders: increases footwork power pushing off to the left and the right, whilst still targeting the singles court. May mean players mistakenly take shots going wide, but this is unlikely if they spend time also training in singles
    2. The net is lowered so that the steepness of the feeders attack is increased, making it more difficult for the singles players to defend the court. May mean players misjudge some defensive shots as they can return shots below net height, but this is unlikely if they spend time also training in singles
    3. Combining these two: low net covering a wide court. Very very difficult.

    There are many more examples, but I like these ones as a starting point.
     
  7. SSSSNT

    SSSSNT Regular Member

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    Thanks guys for entertaining my musing. I generally agree with all of you:

    1. That it will mess up line perception. Although, I did think we could adjust back to normal lines within a few weeks/sessions.
    2. That there are alternative training methods that doesn't require widening the court. I just wondered about having a wider court might be a better training tool for people who don't like to purposefully train and just like to play matches.
     
  8. speCulatius

    speCulatius Regular Member

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    For Singles, Take a children's racket. The 10 cm you have to reach further make a difference. It also gets harder to win a point with a smash.

    For doubles, the problem is not the size of the court, but doubles with all four players using children's rackets are a lot of fun.
     
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  9. BadBadmintonPlayer

    BadBadmintonPlayer Regular Member

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    The game 2vs.1 on a single court is a good option. It's not so much a matter of hitting back the placed one, but of hitting the right shots and footwork. The important thing is that your oponents play side by side and not one of them just stays in front.

    The shuttlecocks simply come back much faster. A smash of you under pressure is your end...
     
  10. Charlie-SWUK

    Charlie-SWUK Regular Member

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    Been watching this thread a bit.

    Guy I trained with said when he was on the national team, sometimes they'd do footwork training on a volleyball court. When they did it, they did the correct footwork each time (so if they were going to forehand net, every movement would be a preparation for a lunge). So, it has some benefits in improving cross-over steps and chasses I think. I'm not entirely convinced it's more beneficial, but sometimes it can help to work outside of normal boundaries - if nothing else it gets your brain working and reprocessing things again.

    Maybe it worked for him because this was his full time job, and he spent so much time on regular courts anyway that it didn't interfere with his line judgement. I'm not sure. He said it felt beneficial.

    With regards to using kids rackets, absolutely do not recommend this. We don't even like kids using kids rackets. We get them onto full size rackets as soon as possible (so they're using full length by sort of 6 or 7 at least - basically when they can swing it without hitting the floor) because of how heavily it's ingrained into the hand-eye coordination.

    @Budi I know you're just using it as an analogy, but for anyone out there thinking about it, please don't use weighted clothing for doing footwork training. It's dangerous. Movement of weight should always be controlled.
     

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