A Commonwealth, European
and Olympic medalist, Marcus Ellis
is one of the best badminton players on the planet.
Let’s go. Push, push, push.
With the help of fellow Olympian, Lolo Jones,
we’re pushing the Briton through
a series of grueling tests
to find out why he’s so good at badminton.
Hi, I’m Lolo Jones
and welcome to Anatomy of a Badminton Player.
Joining me at the University of Westminster in London
is British star, Marcus Ellis. Are you ready for this?
-Yep, let’s do it. -All right.
Badminton is one of the most
demanding sports in the Olympics.
Not only does it require immense skill,
but also a mixture of quick,
explosive movements and sustained efforts of endurance.
Marcus demonstrated his incredible qualities
at the Olympic Games Rio 2016.
He won bronze in the men’s doubles
alongside Chris Langridge.
Marcus has kept his body in peak condition since standing
on the podium in Brazil, clinching one European
and three Commonwealth medals.
First up, we’re going to look at
Marcus’ body composition with the Bod Pod test.
Seal you up.
So a Bod Pod is a machine
that measures someone’s body composition.
It measures the volume of their body and also
how heavy they are and from their mass and their volume
we can extrapolate a lot of information,
including today, body fat.
And now we’ll shoot him to the moon.
Marcus gave us a number of about four percent.
So to put that in context, a score of four percent
is comparable to elite ultra-endurance athletes.
Okay, let's get you out of there.
Badminton! Who knew that they would be the...
slimmest, most shredded athletes?
He almost broke the machine he was so lean.
Marcus’ fat percentage puts him
alongside the world’s best endurance athletes.
Badminton players have to carry their body weight for long
periods around the court and lift it in the air for smashes,
so it’s understandable that he’s lean.
Now we are going to find out about Marcus’ anaerobic power.
Okay Marcus, so now we’re going to do
something called a Wingate cycle test.
Wingate's are famous for being really brutal tests,
during which we are going to make you pedal for 30 seconds
as hard as you physically can
and then a bit more. And this is going to measure
what we call your anaerobic power
or your ability to produce a mass
amount of force and then sustain that
for about 30 seconds.
Marcus exercises anaerobically when making high
intensity movements like smashes and lunges.
His heart cannot pump oxygen quickly enough around his body
to fuel these types of efforts,
so he uses glycogen stored in the muscles instead.
Okay, building speed up.
Building, building, building, building, building.
Fast as you can. Three, two, one. Drop.
-C'mon on, buddy! C'mon on! -C'mon let's go, you got this.
-Good. Good. That's it. -Way to work, Let’s go.
Push, push, push. Come on.
I knew even though I could probably put out quite
a strong output that I would tailor off quite quickly.
-Work, work, work, work, work, -Almost there.
-work, work, work, work... -Almost, almost, almost...
-Almost. Good. -Work, work, work.
Nice, slow it down, slow it down.
Good job.
It was kind of funny to see him fade out fast because
I know exactly how that feels as a sprinter.
You’re doing almost 13.5 watts per kilo
during this test which is a really phenomenal score,
and at the end there you were at almost half that number,
so you’d dropped off to more like seven
watts per kilo, which is a massive drop.
And that kind of represents your sport
I think, because you have a lot of really
high powerful movements, but then you stop and reset
and breathe and you go again.
So it’s a real intermittent, on off, on off sport.
Within two seconds, Marcus was able to reach a peak power
comparable to elite sprinters.
But badminton features short, explosive movements
which is why he faded down to half his maximum wattage
by the end.
Marcus, you get some air while going for those
smashes, so this next test will be perfect for you.
I hope so. Let’s give it a go.
Alright.
So a countermovement jump
is quite a simple test of lower body explosive power.
How powerful an athlete’s legs are.
In terms of badminton, it’s incredibly sport specific.
Badminton players are famous in the sporting world
for their ability to jump and jump high.
Okay so, three, two, one, go for it.
Very nice.
I personally pride myself on my ability
to be able to jump around and move fast.
When I’ve got the ability to jump around endlessly,
I can create pressure to win
points that other people might not be able to.
Nice.
He crushed it.
He did exactly what we thought he would do for his sport.
COUNTERMOVEMENT JUMP
He regularly jumped 51 centimeters
and that’s phenomenally high.
And even in the sport of badminton, what numbers we have
for elite athletes, those are really, really quite high.
MARCUS, FENCER, JUDOKA
I’m curious to see how much higher you would have got
if you had the racquet in your hand
and the competition.
-Bit more adrenaline. -Yeah.
I think I could’ve got a few more extra centimeters maybe.
Alright Marcus let’s take a break from testing.
Tell us, how did you get involved in your sport?
Well, I think like most people it was from my family.
My dad played.
He introduced me to the sport when I was six.
And usually at that age, you have
the attention span of like a fish
but you know, literally you couldn’t drag me off.
And I’ve always believed that was something that,
you know, you’re going to succeed at.
I was going to ask, if your dad got you involved
in the sport, at what age did you start beating him?
Probably 11 or 12.
I was actually quite competitive.
-He would probably disagree. -Okay.
But I think it was around that sort of age.
All right, shall we get back to some more testing?
Yes, I guess we should. Let's do it.
This next test is about stamina.
Let’s see how much Marcus has.
Okay, Marcus,
this last test we are going to do today
is called a VO2 max test.
We’re going to set you up,
put a mask on you, measure your breathing,
measure everything that comes out of you.
And then get you running,
and every two minutes, we are going
to make it a little bit harder.
And it’s going to get harder and harder and harder
and harder.
To be clear, there is no stop point, so I will not stop
the test until you stop the test.
-Okay. -Make sense?
-Fine. -That’s good.
-Brilliant. -But real quick...
This is the last athlete that did the VO2 test.
-You ready for this? -Yeah, I’m ready.
Bobsled season.
Badminton players have to work aerobically
during long matches.
Marcus needs to inhale lots of oxygen
and pump it around his body for ultimate endurance.
LUNGS HEART
And we’re going to start at a bit of a...
-jogging speed, I think... -Okay.
...for you, so quite an easy pace
until we get you warmed up.
Nice pace.
Easy breezy.
30 more seconds and we’ll make it a little harder again.
-Three, two... -All right!
...one, faster now!
15 kilometers now.
Leave it all out there. Leave it all out there.
There you go. There you go.
Way to fight! Way to fight!
-There you go. -Good. Atta-boy.
Amazing. Amazing.
-Good job. Good job. Good job. -Nicely done.
That was incredible. Water?
Well done.
That was an amazing test.
You alright?
Wow, dude. That was awesome.
You blew 63 milliliters per KG per minute
on your VO2 max test.
63 is a really high score.
-Fantastic. -What would you say
like a normal, if you said, a marathoner
or just a long distance runner would push on this test?
I reckon 60s.
Likely saying, so you’re scoring like a distance runner,
you’re scoring like a professional cyclist.
You’re scoring like someone who does endurance for a living.
-He does? -Yeah, so it’s all good.
That’s great numbers. Those are real good.
I do have a question though.
So, on the bike test,
we saw that he was able
to produce power quite quickly, but then he dropped off.
But then you have this test and he didn’t drop off at all,
He just kept going.
The difference there is the different energy
-systems we use... -Yeah.
...so what you’re doing there is real short stuff like that,
-you’re using anaerobic... -Yeah.
systems oxygen free.
This is using oxygen to metabolize,
to turn into energy really quickly.
So you’re basically saying he is a hybrid car.
He has the ability to use gas but he can also use
electricity is what you’re saying?
It’s actually a really good analogy.
You’re right, absolutely.
-Nice. -I’m basically a scientist.
Badminton utilizes the anaerobic energy system
for short bursts and the aerobic energy system
for long efforts.
With a VO2 max score of 63, Marcus demonstrates
his ability to push his body for sustained periods of time.
I mean, we threw every test at him
and there were no weaknesses.
It was pretty impressive to watch.
Go for it.
Very nice.
I don’t know how many more tests I could’ve done today,
but I really, really enjoyed it.
Leave it all out there. Leave it all out there.
I think he’s going to have a great time in Tokyo 2020.
-Come on, you got this! -Come on. Good. Good. Good.
-Way to work! -That's it. That's it.
I’m Marcus Ellis. I’m signing out.
I hope you enjoyed the tests.