How to increase movement speed on the court?

Question: How to move faster on the court?

Answer:
Hi Akhil, thanks for your question.

In order to move quickly around the badminton court, you’ll need 2 main things.

• Good footwork
• Fitness

Good Footwork

In both singles and doubles game, you’ll need to move in an organised manner.

I won’t cover the technical areas in footwork on this page. But I’ll share some tips on how to move faster.

Besides moving in an organised manner, balance is very important. Usually, the only reason that prevents you from running at your top speed is body balance.

If the floor is slippery, you’ll automatically move slower because your body will always work to prevent you from falling.

So the key here is body balance. When you have good body balance at all times, you are free to move quickly around the court.

Let your racket point the way

Every time you move, let your racket lead the way. For example, when you move forward to the net area, your racket must be in front of you while you’re on the way to the net.

You will be faster if you make this your habit. Why? When your racket is in front of you, you are always READY to take the shuttlecock.

This works the same way for moving to the back of the court. Raise your racket arm to the ready position while you’re moving backwards. When you arrive at the back of the court, you can hit it right away.

If you raise your racket arm AFTER you arrive at the back of the court, it will be too slow.

Make use of your Non-Racket Arm

Every time you move, your racket must point the way.

At the same time, you MUST also raise your non-racket arm to balance the weight of your racket arm.

Remember the importance of body balance.

Stay low to the ground

Open your legs wider at all times. In other words, you stay lower to the ground. As you do this, you improve your balance.

This requires a certain level of fitness. You need strong legs to stay low to the ground.

Staying low does NOT mean bending your body towards the ground.

It means widening your legs, but your body must remain straight and firm. Your back must be straight! NOT hunching towards the ground.

If you watch professional matches (especially in singles), players stay as low as possible to the ground, with their legs widened.

Fitness

This is very straightforward; you’ll need to be fit in order to move extremely fast. You need strong legs and lower back muscles!

There is no short cut to becoming fitter. The only way is to train.

However, you will see significant improvement in your speed if you practise the first 3 tips above. To bring it to the next level, you need to increase your fitness.