THE 3 THINGS THAT WILL KILL YOUR TECHNICAL SKILLS

THE 3 THINGS THAT WILL KILL YOUR TECHNICAL SKILLS

You may well be not the best technical badminton player in the World but you don’t have to make it extra difficult for yourself. There are several things you can do to help develop your technique.

The number one killer of technique is by far plastic shuttles, if I had to play with these things I would turn my back on the sport. If you ever wonder why there seems to be always new and very good Danish players well here is one of the most important answers. Also in Asia, I have never seen plastic shuttles, and when I tell people there that in Holland most badmintonners play with plastic shuttles, they always tell me “well Holland must be a very poor country”. And in a way they are right, I have been in some very poor countries in Asia, the hall’s where very bad, and all other conditions where shocking but I NEVER had to play with plastic shuttles, from the U7 until elite are playing with feather shuttles.

The number two in this killing field is the grip, many people don’t take any notice of the size of the grip, this is something you see in both in Europe and in Asia but I have to say more often in Asia. The bigger your grip the more tension in your muscles, and for a good technique you need relaxation in your muscles.

The most used grips are 3 and 4 but when you rape your grip in a extra lager of towel grip you up in grip size, so your 3 become a 2 and your 4 will now be a 3. Many times I hear “yes but my hands are very big” this argument you can directly put in the category of BS stories. Your racket is a very delicate tool and should not be held like a hammer, every finger has a function in strokes and this is only possible when you hold your racket higher in your hand with a little space in the palm of your hand. I’m a big man with equal type of hands I play with a stript 4, this means I take of the factory leader of the grip and put on my own grip so I stay very close to the number 4. But we can now also get number 5 and that is something I will recommend to female and youth players. 

On Number 3 we have the type of racket and strings to use, also here there are some very nice stories to tell. Players tell me they have the same racket has Momota or Lin Dan, and I say no your not, this players have their  rackets specially made while you just play with a standard factory racket. Your racket may have the same look and name but it is not the same racket in a technical sense, it is just a marketing thing and you pay the bill. The difference that makes your factory racket special is your strings and the tension on the strings (the amount of KG’s) that you are using. In general you can say that the more thin a string is and the higher the tension the more technical you have to be to get something out of it. If you are not a very technical player there is no need to play with this thin high tension strings, you will only fuck up your arm with elbow and shoulder pain. Also in information on the packaging of the strings are not correct, we have been looking into this in a laboratory where they measure for medical operation wire for stitches ( they can measure very very thin 100% correct). None of the string producers have the right thickness information about their string, all strings are thicker than what the info said. 

High tension and very thin string don’t go together very well, that is also why top players break so many strings and they need to have a lot of rackets with them. Now you know that your expensive racket is not the racket you thought it was and that your super thin string is not as thin has you believed. From now on you can buy a racket that is just has good has the heavy marketing one, but cost you a lot less, and put a string in it that is not at the high end of the products because you pay too much in relation to the quality you get back. In general I can say that if you are new started in our sport buy a medium stiff racket and put 11 KG on the strings, also youth players until U15 the same thing. U15 and U17 depending on their technical level a medium stiff to stiff racket with 12 to 12½ KG in it. After this level it gets very personal, I see elite players play with stiff rackets and between 13 and 16 KG on it. There are only a couple of factories that give garantie on rackets string up higher than 12 KG. It is very hard to get independent advice I have never taken any sponsorship, this way I can tell what I really think about products. You can always contact us about advice, it is a part of our badminton information service.