May 25, 2023 2 min read
Hey fellow backhanders,
We’ve made this extra video for you to show you the 5 most common mistakes when someone is learning their badminton backhand, so hopefully you won’t make them!
Let’s go…
First off, many people hold their badminton backhand grip too tightly. This makes it tiring for your arm, and difficult to generate power as well as control in your shot.
So try this instead - when you hold the grip, allow a bit of space between the racket handle and your palm. That way, you can use your fingers to generate power and it’s easier to ‘feel’ the shot when you make contact with the shuttlecock.
Second, we see a lot of new players try to use their wrist too much when hitting their backhand shots in badminton. A lot of them think that badminton is all about using your wrist, which is kind of true, but it shouldn’t be used in a way where it’s bending or flexing too much.
Doing it this way, can easily cause a wrist injury and also the bottom of the handle can hit against your wrist too
So try this instead - keep your wrist neutral and don’t bend it much. But rather, use more of a rotational movement of your forearm (also called ‘supination’). This will give you more power and also prevent injury.
Third, we often see players lunge with their non-racket leg when hitting a backhand. Although sometimes you can, the majority of the time, you should lunge with your racket leg.
Fourth, even though we want you to practice your backhand, some players will resort to using their backhand unnecessarily.
As the backhand is usually weaker than a forehand (except if you’re Taufik Hidayat), it’s often better to play a forehand shot instead - if you’re able to get there quick enough.
And lastly, walk before you can run. We often see players who try to do fancy backhand shots before they are competent at the basic badminton backhand skills.
If you’re able to comfortably hit all of the basic backhand shots, you’ll be able to transfer these skills into the more advanced backhand strokes. So don’t skip out on the basics, even though you really want to hit that backhand smash cross court winner against your biggest rival!
And that’s it! 5 common backhand mistakes that we see too often.
See you out there on court!
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Jeff is an ex-international badminton player who represented Australia at the Commonwealth Games (twice as a player & once as a coach), World Championships, All England Championships and multiple Thomas and Sudirman Cups. He was the Australian National Coach, Senior State Head Coach and is the co-founder of Volant badminton & The Badminton Podcast. Jeff is extremely passionate about building the worldwide badminton community & showing the world how incredible our sport really is.
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