Badminton Training Rackets: Can Training Rackets Improve Your Badminton Skills?

What are Badminton Training Rackets?

Badminton training rackets can help power up your game. They are exactly the same as normal rackets, except that they are much heavier.

You might not have come across these types of rackets in your life. But I'll explain the benefits below.

For Beginners: Training rackets help you get your basics right.
For Intermediate players: Training rackets are effective in CORRECTING your mistakes. Correct badminton basics are essential to improve your badminton skills and bring them to a higher level.

Badminton Training Rackets Help You Develop Good Badminton Strokes

1. Training Yourself to Generate More Power

These rackets enable you to develop a beautiful stroke. For example a good badminton forehand stroke requires you to perform a complete swing with good wrist action.

A common mistake among beginners is they perform a forehand stroke by merely 'touching' the shuttle. By doing this, you won't be able to generate much power.

When playing with a training racket (since it's heavy), it's harder to generate power for your stroke by simply 'touching' the shuttle. In such situations, you'll realise that a complete swing is necessary to bring the shuttle from baseline to baseline.

In other words, you are 'forced' to perform a FULL SWING.

These rackets help to CORRECT the common mistake of 'merely touching the shuttle' as you hit it.

2. Improves Control of Your Racket

A full swing alone is not enough to produce a good badminton stroke.

Due to the extra weight in a training racket, you will naturally relax your muscles and tend to avoid hitting the shuttle with full force. Doing so will definitely injure your shoulder.

When working with training rackets, you'll learn to avoid tensing your muscles. Only when your muscles are relaxed, you'll be able to perform a full swing and with good wrist action.

Also you'll have better control over your racket when your muscles are not tensed up. This allows you to learn advanced 'control shots' such as deceptions and slicing.

3. Improves Your Shot Accuracy

In badminton, performing a follow-through is the KEY to accurate shot placement. With a training racket, the added weight of the racket will drag your arm down after a swing, thus forcing you to do a 'follow-through'.

Badminton training rackets helps you to produce good badminton strokes. To sum it up, training rackets:

'Force' you to perform a COMPLETE SWING.
Makes you realise that tensing your muscles to create power is not a good idea. Hence, you learn to RELAX your muscles. When your muscles are relaxed, you'll be able to perform a larger swing as your shoulder's mobility increases. You will also get to perform a maximum wrist action.
Help you develop a habit to follow-through with your swing

These are the critical elements for a good badminton stroke. Click here to find out more about the various badminton strokes.

Good Warm Up Tool for the Wrist

Before you start playing games, badminton training rackets are very useful in helping you warm up your wrist.

This will help relax your wrist and loosen the muscles surrounding your wrist. As such, your wrist will have greater mobility when you play your game.

If time permits, you can always stroke with a partner before starting a game using a badminton training racket. This will help you get the 'feel of badminton'.

Alternatives

Another alternative to training rackets is to insert weights on your arm. Many high performance players train with weights tied on to their arm.

Having weights tied on to your arm is a good way to improve your swing.

However, you don't get to train your wrist action.

With badminton training rackets, your wrist will be affected by the weight of the racket. Therefore you will also get the chance to train your wrist action to improve your shot.

My Suggestion

Badminton training rackets are more costly as compared to putting weights on your arm. I think the benefits of having a training racket outweighs the cost you pay for them.

There are a few badminton training rackets designed for badminton players like us.

One of them is the StrengthPro training racket, they look EXACTLY like a normal racket. No one will realise that it's a training racket until they hold it and feel its weight.

Since it looks exactly like a normal racket, you can string the training racket to your preferred stringing tension. This is good because it enables you to train according to your style of play.

Note: String tension reflects the style of play of a badminton player

To date, StrengthPro has 2 models (SP 140 and 160):

Normal badminton racket: 80-90 grams.

SP 140: 140 grams. I would recommend this model for beginners as it is a lighter training racket among the 2.

SP 160: 160 grams. This model is only for you if you already have good badminton basics. If you are a beginner trying to train with this model, there is a high chance that you'll get injured.

Intermediate badminton players who wish to correct their mistakes and strengthen their basics can consider having this training racket in their badminton bag.

Click here to go to the StrengthPro Training Rackets Website