Badminton post: Good kinetic chain form and the forehand drive

I watched a kid doing training today and observed the way he hit the shuttle when he was doing forehand drives or other non-full-power forehand shots.

Basically, the correct motion is to do a sort of a "push", your arm coming forward and your wrist flying back (relative to the elbow) and then coming forward. It might feel as if you're "slicing" the shuttle from under it, but if you time it right it actually won't slice. Another key point is that a little bit of downward motion with the forearm is OK. The racket still has some upward trajectory because of the wrist, so in combination there is hardly any slicing. That's why it often looks like good players are almost slicing the shuttle. 

Of course if you have less time, you're going to need to tighten up the wrist, and there will be a lot less backstroke, especially at the wrist level. So it won't be this "looser", larger, and more powerful, stroke. That goes with any stroke -- for a properly executed stroke with "good kinetic chain form", a quicker, less powerful stroke corresponds with more tightness along the kinetic chain, but still the same idea holds: propagation of momentum and energy from the base (closed end of the kinetic chain), along the joints (leg drive, hip rotation, torso rotation, shoulder rotation, elbow flexing, wrist flexing or wrist pronation) to the end effector (the racket). 

The following is a page from my OneNote on badminton technique: 

Try not to execute any stroke with an "open kinetic chain". If you have to, at least make sure to generate enough of a "base" so that your shot feels good.

 

You must first prioritize this quality above power. Because this is actually where power comes from. It must come from the base of your kinetic chain and propagate outward (and yes, this means you need to work on proper footing and footwork too). By forcing yourself to do it properly, you will learn to plan your movement to accommodate this.

 

This is one of the biggest differences between trained players vs players with bad habits.

 

 

 

Exercise: Focusing on accuracy

What helped me was just purely focusing my attention on making sure the shot was executed with good kinetic form. Practice forehand drives and forehand lifts without worrying about your power output. Instead, focus on the quality of the shot (i.e. how it bounces off your racket without slicing) and the accuracy of the shot.

 

This is what Ice meant when he said to focus on the accuracy of the shot first. It's not necessarily about where the shot goes, but more that when you focus on accuracy instead of power, you'll think about your body and how it feels in relation to the shuttle and the racket. You'll have to think and prepare for how you want to hit the shot, because accuracy doesn't come without thought. On the other hand, power often comes without thought -- it comes via instinct, strength, muscle, emotion. But… that's only true for very very basic things, not with complex movements like badminton. In badminton, power comes from proper form + time (see below) much like a lot of things. By taking your mind off of power, you forget your instinct and patterns and go into a "learning mode" where you are perceptive about your own sphere of control and the feedback and adjust accordingly.

 

Cue/Check

When you do it right, you'll feel that you're executing the shot with your body, not your wrist or elbow or fingers or wherever. You won't feel unnecessary tension and pain in your joints or muscles because you're trying to force a fast, powerful shot that doesn't exist and reinforcing the lack of kinetic planning and bad habits.

 

Corollary: Power is proportional to time

The interesting corollary to all of this is that if you're holding constant shot quality and accuracy (which is the most important) by executing the same consistent and optimal form, power becomes proportional to time. The only variable you have to play with is how much time you have to execute the shot.

 

And since the amount of time you have from the shot coming off of the opponent's racket and the shot being available to you is bounded by some figure, the only variables you can control are how quickly you're able to mentally process the shot, how prepared you are for the shot, and where you decide to take the shot.

Earning more time: Keeping your racket in position
Let's just discuss the preparation part because that's the easiest to fix. When coaches and others say "keep your racket up", this is what they mean. You will know when you're not doing it right because when you execute the stroke, it will feel as if you're fighting the inertia of the stroke. Remember Stroke: Kinetic Chain? You will feel "rushed" in having to put your racket into position against inertia, fight and cancel out the velocity that was generated while you rushed to raise your racket into position, then perform the stroke. However this requires extra movement because of that extra backwards velocity, so you're going to have to perform a longer stroke (power is proportional to time). That means either you eke out a terrible quality shot that goes outside or just perform a weak shot.

 

So what do you do? Just keep that racket "in position"! And by "in positiion", I mean keep it in a position where you'll have to move it very minimally to get it into the right spot. And that means you actually need to pay attention to where you think the shuttle is going to come very fast where you'll have little time to line up a shot. Think about all the shots you may have to perform, and either imagine or actually experiment whether it's possible to do a shot that is:

1. Quick enough
2. Proper form (kinetic chain is properly engaged with maximal energy transfer)