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Fitness

Badminton and Exercise

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, physically active people live longer and have higher chances of preventing diabetes, heart problems and some cancers. With only a required 30 minutes a day, regular exercise gives out big benefits with little effort.

Sadly, a 30 minute, daily exercise routine can be too much. How, for example, can you convince a couch potato that doing an exercise routine is better than watching 24? For people like me who refuse to move more than is necessary, performing exercises can be the hardship of the century.

Most people will go to many lengths and a number of excuses to avoid exercising. They say that it takes a lot of time and that it is very exhausting. What they don’t see is that exercising can be integrated with other activities. In this respect, badminton can be a good tool to encourage yourself to exercise.

Badminton is a fun yet competitive sport. Fun and competition are the two greatest motivators that get human beings moving. Your primary objective, of course, will be to play badminton; not exercise badminton. It’s the same as swimming. I go out to swim and unknowingly exercise my body. I don’t go out to swim so I can exercise. If I though of badminton or swimming as exercises, I probably would not do any of them.

By doing something sporty, I get the benefits of exercise even though it isn’t my primary intention. For badminton, I instantly acquire an anaerobic exercise routine. Playing badminton makes me fit in terms of flexibility, coordination, muscular strength and muscular flexibility.

While playing badminton, you are constantly running, jumping, hopping, stretching and twisting yourself this way and that to be able to hit the shuttle cock. You can just imagine all the muscles working to keep up with the orders coming from your brain. Lowell N. Douglas, PhD explains that there is more physical activity in badminton compared to football or tennis. He cites the fact that a badminton shuttle cock will be in actual play 44% of the time while tennis balls are being hit or flying only 8% of the time and football has a surprising average of only 14% of actual play time.

Aside from the intense physical activity, badminton is also a good way to improve rapid hand-eye coordination. Badminton also sharpens your spatial sense of self as you need to keep your eyes on the shuttle cock and at the same be aware of where your arms and hands are and the length of the racket to be able to correctly gauge the timing of your swing in order to hit the shuttle cock. Did I forget to mention that you swing your racket arm approximately 400 times in a badminton game? You might want to try training yourself by alternatively using left and right hands to hold the racket. This way, both arms get exercised. I’ve tried switching arms myself and I was able to get the hang of it in just a couple of hours.

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