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Home  health Badminton |
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Badminton
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Written by suphut
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Wednesday, 20 February 2008 |
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There are two kinds of badminton: "dink" badminton, in which people lazily bat a plastic bird over a volleyball net while they sip beer on a late summer's afternoon, and power badminton, a dizzyingly fast game of speed, power, and position played on an indoor court (to eliminate wind interference) with a five-foot-high net, a goose-feather leathercovered cork shuttlecock (the plastic ones are too fast for this already lightning-fast game), and 4- to 5-ounce rackets (a little lighter than squash rackets). The Chinese, Japanese, Indonesians, Malaysians, Singaporeans, and Thais dominate the world ranks of this primarily amateur sport, and for good reason. In Asia, badminton is the national sport, as soccer is in Europe and baseball is in the United States.
Badminton is at least as fast as racquetball and squash. In a toplevel game, a shuttlecock spends about 0.95 second in flight. A squash ball spends 1.3 seconds, and racquetball and tennis balls spend 1.5 seconds. The full swing of a power shot may last only one tenth of a second and send the bird across the net at a speed greater than 200 miles per hour. No wonder a long volley of twenty-five or thirty shots may last only twenty seconds. Badminton requires fast reflexes because the bird is not allowed to bounce.
Evaluation: "Badminton is not an aerobic sport because of its stop-start nature," says Christine L. Wells, a professor at Arizona State University in Tempe and a former competitive badminton player. "Although it is not a strength activity, it does minimally strengthen your triceps, deltoids, back, and the quadriceps in your thighs. It doesn't contribute much to your flexibility."
Training: Because the game requires high speed and stamina, players must augment their badminton training with some kind of aerobic exercise. Top players usually run, jump rope, and do intervals and calisthenics or circuit training. Squats, pull-ups, sit-ups, push-ups, dumbbell pullovers, and arm sprints strengthen large muscles in your legs, trunk, and arms. For power and snap in your wrists and arms, perform very fast reps of wrist curls with light weights. For flexibility in your back and your racket arm, shoulder, and wrist. perform waspwaisters, king of Siam' kowtows, posture clasps, birds, and pigeon crawls. Bridges and door hangs are also very useful if you can do them comfortably.
Complementary sports: None, although volleyball uses similar back arching and spiking movements, and basketball, racquetball, and squash require similar sprinting and agility.
Injuries: Rare. Occasionally, a player develops bursitis in her racket shoulder; muscle strains in her trapezius, rhomboids, and deltoids of the shoulder, in the abdominal rectus, or in the gastrocnemius, soleus, or hamstrings of the leg; sprains of the forearm extensors, inside or outside of the ankle, or inside or outside of the knee. A low backache after several games indicates weak abdominals and inflexible back muscles. When played outdoors during hot weather or indoors in nonair-conditioned gyms, heat exhaustion is a danger.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 05 April 2008 )
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