Badminton
How Ashwini Ponnappa shoulders the pressure of her game
The ace shuttler tells us about the muscles involved in playing badminton, how her game differs from other players, and how she keeps fit by making no excuses.
2 min
Ashwini Ponnappa - No Excuses
Indian badminton doubles ace Ashwini Ponnappa explains her fitness routine and how it helps her excel at her game
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The way I play badminton, I tend to use my shoulders more than other players do. Usually, baddy players use their wrists more than their shoulders while hitting a shot, but I use more power from my shoulder and less from my wrists.
Badminton players are prone to a lot of shoulder injuries as we play a lot of overhead shots. We also tend to hit shots at different angles which puts a lot of strain on the shoulders. In my case, because I play through my shoulders a lot more, there’s more risk of injuring them.
Focus on shoulders, arms and back, and warm up properly
© Ali Bharmal | Red Bull Content Pool
To make sure my shoulders are strong enough to strike the shuttlecock, and to avoid injuries, I focus a lot on my shoulder exercises. I have a good strength and conditioning coach — Deckline Leitao — who helps me with my exercises.
I do a lot of shoulder presses. I find that pull-ups help me too. They’ve played a huge role in keeping my arms and back strong. I love that exercise.
Ashwini says press exercises help strengthen her muscles
© Ali Bharmal | Red Bull Content Pool
The rotator cuff in the shoulder is a group of muscles that play a huge role in badminton. The rotator cuff helps stabilize the shoulder joint as we hit a lot of overhead smashes and overhead shots. We keep working the joint, so it puts a lot of load on the rotator cuff. One thing I focus on when perfecting my smash is to feel the swing as I work through the rotator cuff. For a strong swing and stability in the motion, you need to keep your rotator cuff strong.
Of course, like everyone else, there are times when I just don’t want to work out. There are times when I’m pretty drowsy, I get to the gym and think to myself, “I don’t think I can work because internally I’m sleeping.”
But to me, it’s important to have no excuses if I want to be fit. No excuses means, that no matter if you’re having a tough day, no matter if your body doesn’t feel good, you still get your workout done. Doing that helps a lot because you automatically feel better after you have accomplished something.
Fitness is also important because if you aren’t careful, you can pick up a lot of injuries when playing. I make sure I strengthen the areas that are most prone to injuries; like knees, Achilles tendon, shoulders, lower back and wrist. But no matter how prepared you are, you could still get injured.
Pull-ups are one of Ashwini's favourite exercises
© Ali Bharmal | Red Bull Content Pool
Here are three general tips that can help you avoid injuries when playing.
Make sure you warm-up
The first general rule to avoid injuries is to have a good warm-up before playing. It’s extremely important to warm-up well. You can’t just get onto the court and push yourself into playing immediately. A proper warm-up helps you get ready to be pushed.
I make sure that I do some good stretching exercises and running. I focus a lot on doing backward runs while warming up as it helps to keep my Achilles tendon strong and flexible.
Strength and conditioning
There’s a lot of work to be done when you aren’t on the court. Exercises that help you strengthen your muscles are very important. Maintaining adequate strength in the muscles that you use most to play will make sure they are strong enough to deal with the strain that they have to go through.
Listen to your body
Finally, you have to know your body. Understand what your body needs and how you should go about getting the best training for your body. Quite often we fail to listen to our body and push ourselves to the extent of getting injured. This can be prevented if we ease off training a bit and sort out niggles before pushing further. It’s important to know when to push and when to back off to maintain a fit body. Just think about how you would drive a car — the accelerator and brakes are equally important.
2 min