Current training regime

Even professional players have coaches.... What can you achieve further as an amateur by yourself without coaching?
That was basically the drive for me to get coaching from a professional. I had hit a ceiling. But I needed to unlearn what I had and relearn my basics and footwork (I used to train singles) in order to significantly raise my game. It was a conscious decision to start from the very beginning again as strong foundations means your potential ceiling can be higher. With these foundations, it means my present conversion to doubles doesn't need major overhaul of techniques.

 

It's a big hurdle for anybody. However, one great thing that happened is I enjoyed my games far more after training and raising my level. Enjoyed playing far more than I ever expected and met lots of people from it. Thus I consider the value for me to be far greater than just the cost of the lesson.

I think the enjoyment comes from knowing that people have to beat you rather than you losing points from unforced errors or too many bad techniques.

If you travel with your racquet, it is rare to be refused games.

 

Care to share some of the details of the stuff that you do? It would be very interesting.

 

You are very lucky. But the variation depends on location. What was their world ranking? Top ten? Top 50?

 

This week is a bummer. I have come down with a cold the last two days. It means not being able to play nor train. In fact, I don't even feel like training with a clogged up nose and ears that don't work very well. I did drag myself to the gym this morning to do a light workout. Back muscles again, arms, shoulders and free weights. I only did two sets. The aim is not to add stamina or bulk, but to reduce the rate of decline. Hopefully I will be better in the next couple of days but I will have to miss a Taekwon do session tomorrow to be on the safe side. Being ill sucks. It might take me a couple of weeks to recover to my previous level.

However I can discuss something else. My tournament preparation. A little experience helps. I have entered the men's doubles of my age group and the open categories of the A grade and mid grades. I am crap at mixed because I need a partner who can drop back, defend and turn defence into attack. Not too many ladies can do this. This is the HK annual championships so it is pretty important to me. In the A grade, you will get all the HK team guys playing. I haven't got a hope in hell of getting through the A grade but wait, why did I enter when my main focus is the age group championships?

As mentioned previously, each round is played on a different day and possibly a different venue. The shuttles are way fast as well. In fact, during last year's competition, I tested the shuttle before the match (standard underarm swing from baseline) and it flew out the back by three or four feet. The umpire said in an unsympathetic way, there are no shuttles with correct shuttle speed so you have to play. Considering they are so strict on registration time and playing other rules correctly, I found their attitude on shuttle speeds mystifying. The upshot is, that you have to get used to very different conditions for each match. Different lighting, heights, temperature from day to day. But the more you do this, the easier it gets to adapt. Since I have no chance to train with the competition shuttles as yet, I entered the open divisions to get experience of the different environments so I am more ready when I really need it.

The A grade will be initially a qualifying round. Mainly for fun. It would be a miracle if my partner and I get past one match. The intermediate group is also tough. A few years ago I took a game off the number three seeds. But the level has gotten even better. So, with the luck of the draw, going past two rounds would be good. My partner is more of a singles and mixed player so he will need to adjust.

 

Over 45s

Besides badminton, do you any other supplementary exercises?

 

I prefer to regard people who do not play badminton as being a bit odd....

Read some of your blog on training. Part of your difficulty could be due to muscle weakness in lower body. Last year, I was only doing gym on machines and had some joint pains during badminton training - I could feel some areas of the body were not good. I had the coordination but I couldn't make the body move. Hence, after recovering from plantar fasciitis, I realised I needed something else. It was by accident that I found out the exercise the physio taught me could be replicated by martial arts kicking (i.e. for the supporting leg). Thus, I selected taekwondo as it involves more legwork exercises and good for leg speed. I can't just do the exercises the physio taught me - it's too boring - so another sport is ideal for me for learning and with other people around, motivating me.

If your coach is the younger sort of person, they sometimes might not realise how training needs to be adapted slightly for the older player. When younger, I could play for a few hours without doing other exercises but now, it is a different kettle of fish. Trying to think more expansively, we do see pictures of pro players in the gym doing other exercises so I think some gym work would be beneficial for us normal players who have the desire to train and still improve.

 

Weird. I have got a lot better over today. This morning my nose was clogged up and I still felt tired even after sleep. By this evening, my nose feels a lot better. I should be OK for tomorrow night.

I thought I would mention about my racquets and strings. Last year, I changed to the ZF2 3U G5. When I was growing up, Yonex racquets were the dominant brand and I guess that's carried over to an easy familiarity. How many do I have? Erm, I bought 5! Yeah, I think a bit of overkill if one the strings break. So why five and JP version...? In fact, the opportunity to buy them second hand came up in HK. There are quite a lot of people here who like to rotate trying racquets out. They find they don't like the racquets and then sell them second hand. I got the five racquets from various sources at about 65% of the import price. Each racquet has been gripped exactly the same way. The condition of the racquets were very good with only minor blemishes. Difficult to pass on good deals like that. Four racquets would have been enough though for the strings I use.

Following on from that my strings are BG80 at 28lbs with prestretch. Difficult to say how long they last for when rotating round each racquet at random. I have four weeks with them and then the looser ones will start to be restrung at 29lbs for the competition. Should I go for 30lbs? Not sure if there is any further advantage for me. Control is going to be the main thing. The thing is, control is more dependent on my technique rather than anything else at present. My old competition tension was BG65 at 30lbs. When going higher tension, one has to be wary of shoulder and elbow injuries. Those take ages to recover from. So it's a risk to change things too much in terms of equipment.

 

Good point to bring up.

I did ask my coach this question. He said it is really up to the individual's own preference more than anything.

3U vs 4U. There's going to be a different feeling on different shots. I felt that more improvement can come from technique changes, training and decision making rather than just changing to a much lighter racquet. I have never been a fan of really light racquets. I used to use 2U for many, many years. The reason for using for a newer racquet over the 2U was that strokes have changed with newer racquet technology - shorter backswings and smaller finger movements. There is also the other issue of changing some of my footwork patterns which is totally non racquet dependent. Improving these skills theoretically enables improvement by means of good playing habits and probably longer term improvement. Ultimately, I want to look good on court and impress people . Hopefully, I can reach the status of being called an 'ageing minion'.

I do agree 4U is a more simplistic way of looking at the problem. Simple is good but so is a holistic view.

Writing this post brings to mind, what improvement can an ageing player expect? Should I be trying to change my game? Is it unreasonable to change to slightly different stroke patterns and footwork. Should I simply practice my present technical skills better? Can address these questions at a later date.

 

Do you have flat feet? I have custom made insoles. Expensive but I have really flat feet.