Badminton, like any other physically-intensive sport out there, causes immense strain on your muscles, joints, and tendons. And as a result, you’ll find many badminton players with a host of ankle, knee, back, and wrist problems.
However, you’ll find many others who, even while playing badminton on a regular basis, seem to face far fewer injuries. What’s the difference between these two groups of people?
The Warm Up
The difference between those who get injured a lot and those who don’t lies in the preparation that goes into playing a game. Without warming your body up and stretching properly, you risk injuring yourself. As such, the warm up is the most essential part of any sport.
By warming up your body and loosening up your muscles, not only do you prevent injury; you also ensure optimal performance while playing badminton.
What Happens During A Warm Up
The ideal warm up should include a short session of cardiovascular exercises followed by dynamic stretching and a few strength drills.
Cardiovascular exercise helps to bring your heart rate up, improves circulation, and loosens your joints. This is a sort of preparation to ensure that your body is ready to deal with the all the dynamic movements that you’ll have to perform while playing badminton.
Image: chennai.flyersbadminton.com
Once your body is properly warmed up, you need to stretch out your muscles to prepare them for the activity that lies ahead. Stretching loosens up the muscle fibers so they are able to easily absorb any shocks or impacts you may experience during a game.
When you stretch before a game, it’s important to perform dynamic stretches where muscles are constantly moved in order to stretch them out. Static stretches, or stretches that you hold for a long time, are best performed after a badminton game, when the body is cooling down.
Finally, after you’ve warmed up and stretched, it’s important to perform a few strength drills or exercises to bulletproof your muscles against injury. Even doing a few wrist curls will help strengthen your wrists and allow them to better deal with the various movements that they will have to endure during the game. Besides, strength exercises will allow you to slowly acclimatise your body to the gruelling physical activity that lies ahead.
How Long Should My Warm Up Be?
Ideally, your warm up needs to be between 20 minutes and half an hour before you start playing. And even when you’re done warming up, try rallying with a friend for a while before you start playing a serious game. This will give your body more time to get used to the movements.
Be Knowledgeable
Most of us are only aware of a few basic warm-up exercises. And while they will certainly help prevent an injury, you need to get in touch with a coach or a professional and learn how to warm up the right way.
Once you’ve got a solid warm-up routine, you’ll be able to push your body to the limit during the actual gameplay. And what’s more? You can kiss your injuries goodbye!
Here’s a video on the basic warm-ups you can do before playing a badminton game:
Also read: 5 Best Stretches You Can Do Before The Start Of A Badminton Game
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