Development of Badminton-specific Footwork Training from Traditional Physical Exercise to Novel Intervention Approaches

Abstract

<strong>Background:</strong> Badminton has been one of the most popularised sports and physical activities around the globe with documented healthy benefits. Training of badminton footwork could enable rapid movement velocity thus improving the athletic performance. This study was aimed to review the development of badminton footwork training and summarise the different exercise training approaches and resistance training. <strong>Methods:</strong> A systematic search of “badminton footwork” and “exercise training” was conducted in the research articles of both English and Chinese languages in order to review the development of badminton sport, footwork classification and definition, traditionally employed exercise training, and resistance training. <strong>Findings and Implication:</strong> A recent popular exercise training intervention, wearable resistance (WR) training, was mainly introduced and discussed as this approach has been successfully employed in the training of other sports. Being a typical acyclic motion on badminton court, the training of badminton footwork shall consider integrating the WR approach with wearable and adjustable loads. The training intervention may attach incremental loads to either the whole body or regional limbs to practice real-competition movements with high-velocity, thus forming motor adaptation. The adaptation from task-specific training may increase footwork efficiency and transfer to match situation. Future WR research should compare different WR loading configurations from acute and longitudinal analysis, thus forming scientific evidence to support selection and design of training scheme for badminton footwork. Findings may provide implications for the selection of approaches and schemes design for badminton-specific footwork training to improve on-court performance and prevent potential injuries.