We still haven't received the schedule for the tournament. The start will be in two weeks time though my matches may not be so early (or maybe they will be). My thoughts also turn to my racquets. I need to regrip them. One racquet grip is also a little small in diameter. Two racquets are a bit soft and will need restringing. My usual tension is 28lbs with BG80. I am tempted to go for 29lbs but then again I should probably stick with something familiar. I have five racquets Yonex ZF2 3UG5. It's probably a bit of overkill but I did get them at a cheaper price. Matches will run over three weeks so I may need to restring in the middle of the tournament. That's why I want to get two racquets strung now so the strings settle in and don't change much when the tournament starts.
Good luck. I would be interested to know how you get on! And I know what you mean. My court gets larger, their court gets smaller. Completely unfair.
I just came back from a session. I had not meant to update so quickly but I am feeling pumped. Today's games started off slowly. I paired up with my doubles partner and we didn't do very well! Poor positioning and making lots of mistakes without any consistency. In the middle of the session, I did some routines. Basically, one person carries 15 shuttles, stands at the front of the court and throws them one by one to the midcourt/forecourt. The person being trained just has to reach each shuttle and play the shot at speed whilst retaining balance and moving back to base. After my excellent training session from a couple of days ago, I felt very good with this exercise. Managed to keep my balance, centre of gravity low and footwork in control (most of the time). We did eight sets of fifteen shuttles. I went back to my games and they subsequently went really well! The routines had sped up my brain and body reactions to match the game play. The difference was so big. Probably on competition days, I will get on court in the morning and do this exercise. Then go to the competition venue. Came home feeling so good, drank a litre coconut water straight off, ate a bit of chocolate (replenish glycogen right?), drank milk mixed with whey protein and then had dinner. Well, need to muscle build during sleep. Tomorrow I will fit in a gym/weights session.
That's good to hear Cheung! I had group coaching and games session today. We practiced a singles type defense: lunge to the sides and just push the shuttle over the net. Completely killed my thighs though. My games session didn't go too well. I made many errors and lots of hitting the tape ;(. I want to blame lack of sleep and fatigue from games session yesterday but they just seem like excuses. How to increase consistency?
Great. No pain, no gain! Good question. Drills but, it depends! It depends on how good the other person on the other side of the net is. If they know how to throw the shuttle consistently, hit the shuttle consistently as a feeder, then this is key. At lower levels of play, say lower league players, then you probably don't realise the difference. How efficient is your practice if the feeding quality is low? This brings me to another advantage of one to one coach who has practiced full time or almost full time. The feeding quality is very high. They ask me to do practice a particular shot, I get the shuttle fed to me at a particular height and speed nine times out of ten. I can just focus on the technique. Let's say for my backhand defensive drives in which I learnt a new technique. I must have spent four hours (over different sessions) just doing drives. And that doesn't mean I can use it totally consistently in game play. Imagine a group class trying to practice one shot. Another exercise which I find beneficial is a one on one exercise which most regular players can do. One person stands at the forecourt in one corner. He hits the shuttle to you and you have to hit back to him in that area. To make it useful, he has to understand that the shots he plays to you are not 'winners' - he has to give you shots that are in your ability to chase, just able to reach or sometimes a little past your limit. Your objective is to get initially ten or more shots over in one sequence. I have done this exercise a lot. You start to get a feel for which situations are your weak ones, or when you start to lose a bit of concentration. I recommend the feeder concentrate hitting to three particular corners of the court that you have agreed upon. Four corners is for those guys who are almost fulltime.
You too?! Some courts are just built wrong I thing, hahaha. The thing I hate is how some people manage to fill their entire square when I am serving to them. Looking at them, they seem perfectly human-sized, yet when I'm about to serve they somehow grow and totally in the right position for every single kind of serve. It's amazing.
I agree with Cheung - its all about drills. But its about doing those drills with the actual intent of hitting the shuttle at a particular height and to a particular place. My coach always said to me to hit everything at least 1 foot above the net - meaning the shuttle shouldn't ever get closer to the net than 1 foot. This was hard - I was so used to trying to get my shots tight to the tape (drops, smashes, drives etc) that intentionally aiming higher was tough. But what I learnt was invaluable - If every shot is safely above the net, you never make any mistakes. Whats more, you gain a real feel for where you are hitting, meaning that you become much more accurate. When I got tired, I had to aim 2 feet above the net - just as a means of making sure I got the shuttle over! What tended to happen as I got extremely tired (especially doing corners drills) is that my judgement is severely affected by my tiredness. This meant that even if I aimed high over the net, sometimes the shuttle only just gets over. I believe this is something you should try out - aim all your shots safely above the net (start with 1 foot above). It will not make shots easier to reach for the opponent - you can still play steep shots and fast shots etc etc... but it means your consistency, especially when tired, greatly increases. Good luck!
This is my favourite drill, and the main feature of my coaching sessions (whether giving or receiving lessons). If fed correctly, it teaches you how to get shots back even when you are in a terrible position. As you say - you add new corners and new sequences as the player improves, and each time it teaches the player something new - a new sequence they can't recover well from e.g. forcing them to play a straight drop on the backhand, then retrieve a cross court drive to the forehand, then get pummelled with flat drives to the body, then a deceptive short push/net shot. I agree with you - if fed correctly to allow a mixture of what should be "easy", what should be "hard" and should be out of reach, the player develops extremely well. I like 20 shots in a sequence. My coach also did this with me for the back corners - I never trained it enough to get really good. The feeder stands on the backline, and hits clears and attacking shots (mainly drops) to the worker. The worker has to retrieve everything with a high clear. There were some cross court drop shots that I just cannot get close to - they are too deceptive and fast. As far as I can tell, if the worker can do each of the four corners, 20 shots consecutively, and repeat that for a session that lasts about 1 hour, then they are by definition an extremely high level singles player. Simple?
Used to do this for singles and like you found, it was extremely hard. So, mainly stuck to the feeder in the forecourt. You have to be very, very good to do this from the rear court. Would you say county 1st team level and above? Now I switched to doubles and haven't considered this exercise with the feeder in the rear court. Maybe it can be done but my coach hasn't yet done so. He is a little wary of pushing me too hard due to my age and niggling injury issues in the past. Could we do a doubles exercise where the feeder gives mainly drops and smashes and the receiver lifts or drives? Yup. For those unfamiliar with the exercise, they can start off at ten consecutive shots. Then build up to the target of twenty. For singles, the feeder can choose to be in the four corners. Or even the centre forecourt/rear court areas can be chosen as these are also tactical areas of play in singles. At present, I use this exercise for doubles training my midcourt and rear court movement. The feeder stands at the forecourt or midcourt and feeds doubles style shots to my midcourt and rear court. We are talking about feeding pushes, drives and clears. With my coach we found my forehand footwork is rather weak. Also, for some low forehand shots, we discovered I have a bit of a circular action to my technique which means my soft pushes have a slow loop and frequently fall into the net. Actually, it is a habit from my singles days which after the diagnosis, I am trying to train out because it has the disadvantage of slow racquet movement, and the shuttle speed is slow allowing a fast opponent to come in and control the net. For singles, it is an acceptable technique but for doubles, no good. From this exercise, I also realised I stand too straight when waiting to see what is the next shot. I need to force myself to keep my shoulders forward with a low centre of gravity.
I think if you can have the feeder in the back corner and you are able to competently return the shuttles, you are probably county firsts - but I am sure someone could prove me wrong! I agree with you though that I am not sure it makes sense to do it for doubles. Furthermore, I can't really think of a good doubles equivalent - the stresses on movement just aren't the same... but then again this sort of movement can be useful in mixed doubles every now and then. I would agree its hard going - and there are probably lots of things you would want to be able to do well before you worried about that kind of movement. Much better to do a flatter kind of defensive drill, where you can focus on switching from defence to attack when you get an opportunity.
What do you think are the biggest differences between top county players and top international players? Looking through my newbie goggles, I really can't find anything! Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
I went to a new place to play some doubles. Part of my preparation to getting used to change of environment. When we play tournaments, we go completely into the unknown with the hall and flight of shuttles. So, today was a good session to play and get used to a new hall. Mixture of players tonight ranging from mid twenties to forties. The good thing is that everybody has a decent to good smash but not the totally 'kill-in-one' smash. Rallies tend to be extended and we had some good rallies. Winning or losing is of secondary importance here. I need to put into practice and consolidate what I have learnt. Each time I made a mistake, I tried to shadow the correct technique. The error actually may have been the shot before. Good things are: - I made a concious effort to crouch down and low for receiving shots. Unfortunately, not always consistent with this but a lot more than before. One of the players remarked I am always paying attention to each shot from his observation of my crouching low with the centre of gravity forward. - I was able to vary my backhand drives off smashes much more. Some I just hit back, some I guided crosscourt, some I changed the pace and hit them fast, sometimes block. Can still do better but this variation is something my coach has been working with me. - My movement has continued to improve! In doubles, we sometimes get whipped crosscourt drives. When in a rear court position, I can reach them. Then if the shuttle gets fast pushed to the other side, I can reach that as well and still play a half decent shot. And that is what I want in order to make the opponent need to play one extra shot in a rally so produce the 'mental pressure' effect. One notable rally was me receiving a left and right cross court drive, then the opponent played a netshot which I managed to chase and reach but not quite get it over. The opponent said (in Chinese) "This 'brother' can really move fast around the court!" So, things I can improve on: - Smash. Consistency. I haven't worked on that with my coach! - Another person mentioned I was getting a lot of difficult shots back but making mistakes on easy shots. He wondered if I had not been playing much. Very astute of him - I have only been back playing properly for just over two months. - Shot selection. Getting a bit excited and trying to play Indonesian style and pshing and driving eveything from the net. I need to think about the opponent's position and sometimes play the netshot. Not enough practice-match experience.
You are right that they are much faster! Just saw some videos and it's crazy how fast people like LCW are! What kind of fitness training do you have to do to keep up that level of speed, consistently? Any ideas? The amazing thing to me is not the speed in and of itself but that they can maintain that kind of speed for such a long period of time! Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
Last night was a real bummer. Totally pumped up for some games after last Sunday's fantastic session and then got called for work which mean my practice games session was totally destroyed. Had a lesson scheduled for today. Before coach came, I laid out all the shuttles (I keep the shuttles), did a bit of stretching, some skipping for warm up. I did some practice serves which didn't go very well for the first ten serves. I will keep that in mind when in comes to match day when I need to practice at least 5 to 10 serves just before the match starts. I also laid out some tubes on the floor to practice footwork exercises that concentrate on rhythm of movement - it's impossible to move the feet fast if you do not have rhythm. Managed to get time for a 1.5 h session. Coach asks me how i have been and I describe my last Sunday's blast of a session. I told the coach about some feedback that night given to me by another player - I got a lot of difficult shots back and I also dumped some very easy shots. That person wondered how much I had been playing and I admitted not playing for over 6 months due to injury. Good to get feedback like this that I can relay back to coach. We did a bit of everything I have covered in the past but trying to do things better. My focus was a bit slow today perhaps from being deflated from not playing last night. Or was it the chorus of a Mandarin song that got stuck in my head after shazaming it and looking it up? (林志炫- 從來不肯對你說) - We did defensive blocks from drives again, me being on the left side of the court, drives coming at around my hip height. Faults a) One of my hitting zones directly in front of my body was a bit off with timing. b) I tried lifting to the back. Timing was a bit off. Coach asked me to aim better...not just to the back of the court but nearer to the singles corner to give more options in moving the opponent. - net game. Again, we did the Goh Liu Ying exercise mentioned earlier in the thread with coach in midcourt feeding me drives and me playing drives back and keeping rhythm in my bounce. This time I did it standing slightly behind the service line and at random intervals coach throws in a slower drive so that I have to step forward to hit the shuttle. I wasn't very good with this change of direction to go forward. Apart from that, I am a bit weak on forehand technique killing a shuttle. In the old days, tap at the net wasn't taught much. I think racquets were heavier then and with a tap, the racquet head could hit the tape. So, we learnt to brush a netkill. Now, coach goes back to the tap - the shuttle can be hit much cleaner and will go on a straight path. A brush kill tends to make the shuttle float down a bit. OK, so I have 30 years of a brush kill to change into a tap kill. Not easy! We combine this exercise with all that movement work we covered last week, i.e. the shoulders forward, low centre of gravity and avoiding having weight on the heels. After 60 or 70 tries, we switch to the backhand technique. Great, it works first time, very short takeback, quick squeeze of the fingers, head of racquet flicks out and hits shuttle, very short followthrough and the shuttle just zooms to the floor. We do it about ten times and then coach says "OK, we are giving up on this side. There's absolutely no problem with your backhand kills at the net. We go back and practice the forehand side." We return to the forehand and do another hundred shots and then give up to try another day. LOL. No matter how much more I practice that shot today, it's not going to work and time today is better spent working on other things. I can come back to working on forehand netkills another day. - net game part two. This time coach feeds me shuttles from standing around the service line. He is throwing them a bit flattish with a little pace so I cannot kill the shuttle. The shot I have to play is a little 'tap' of the shuttle. In fact, it's a very light tap intending to get the shuttle over the net with a bit of pace so they have very little spin (spin slows the shuttle down in the air). The shuttle will then go down quite quickly so trying to make the opponent hit up. Coach throws the shuttles really quickly to forehand and backhand side but not too widely - this exercise is to train rhythm and quick, reaching short movements and not stepping. If I don't have quick bounce rhythm, I cannot keep up. Secondly, that light tap technique is really important. Using a brush or push technique means bigger followthrough, slower recovery of the hand + arm and basically not being able to keep up. I loved this exercise. Once you are in the rhythm, you feel totally at ease rather like Quicksilver character from the X Men. - rear/mid court exercises. We do the same as before. I hit to one forecourt zone and coach hits the shuttle around the court checking my rhythm. He is happy and I know I have made a big improvement from previous practices. I again have to do tapping actions on the shuttle to get it over the net if the shuttles are at shoulder height. I have an inconsistent area on my backhand side when the shuttle slightly slows without pace at the level of my head which I tell him about. He checks it out spraying out the shuttles to make me move away and then deliberately hitting a shuttle to that area to diagnose what's wrong. I get three things, a) tap the shuttle (LOL) and the face of the racquet towards the floor a bit, b) don't put my racquet shaft horizontal with my hand - I should drop my hand a little and have the shaft pointing slightly diagonally upwards., c) the hitting zone - the hitting point of the shuttle is too far backwards. I need it to be closer to the net. With all this input, I should be hitting the shuttle in the net but it doesn't work like that. Surprisingly, the shuttles go just over the net. very straight and very cleanly hit. Although my backhand is quite inconsistent, my forehand is very good in technique from midcourt (OKish from rear court). That's just so wierd because at the net, it's my forehand with the problem and backhand kills being good. Throughout the session, coach is always advising me on short sharp strokes with very short followthrough. Just tap the shuttle. Seems very important. Through some of the breaks, we have light chats. Today was injury problems with a couple of his students. Both enthusiastic but too enthusiastic. One has injured his arm with repetitive strain injury - golfers and tennis elbow. Trying too many repetitive hard practice swings to develop strength which resulted in tedonitis. Another student learnt a drive technique, then went to youtube, found another drive technique, wanted to practice the youtube technique with coach (coach didn't really want to but the customer is always right). The student ended up with an injury. Today was great. My motivation is really good. I feel like I am improving very well. I hope I can be consistent. Competition coming up in two weeks.
Consistency of quality of shots will be the hallmark. Great endurance, physicality and mental strength are other huge assets that makes the differences. Meaning to say, what you have, they have but there are things that they have, you dont have.
Only mens doubles. For me, singles requires a very regular and consistent training and game time which I cannot do now because of work. I am not much of a mixed player.
@Cheung @MSeeley if one is trying to increase the intensity/volume of Badminton and physical training in general, what do you guys do to recover faster? Do you guys have any routines that you follow? Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
