Hello and welcome back to Badminton Insight, in this video we're going to share 10 practices
to help you improve many areas of your doubles game! We do these every week in our training as
professional players but the great thing about these practices is that they can be done at any
level right from beginners to advanced players and make sure to listen out for our top tips on
each practice as we go! The first practice is smash and layoff as you can see the worker smashes and
lays off in a straight line and then moves to the other side and smashes cross and lays off
cross and like with all of these exercises you can do them with one feeder or two feeders if there's
three of you that want to improve! If you have two feeders you can hit all of your shots straight
this practice can improve your game in so many ways such as your smash timing explosive movements
whether that's moving forwards backwards or diagonally and having the ability to lay off
with control even when you're moving at maximum speed and even though we're saying feeder here
there really is no such thing as just feeding they should always be working on a specific area too
in this practice it could be their lift accuracy defence timing or simply not making any mistakes
the second practice is rear mid which replicates the situation in doubles where you're in a front
and back formation with your partner in front of you. If you're new to rear mid it can be good
to put something in front of you to visualise where your partner would be we often use a bin
but hopefully your partner isn't that rubbish sorry that was trash anyway back to it rear mid
is great for improving so many different areas such as your movement, explosive speed, consistency
and also making good shot choices such as not hitting hard from a bad position and there are
actually a few different ways you can do this practice which we'll include on screen now for you
it's also important to mention that we'd always advise to try and make these practices fun
especially when you've done them as many times as we have so you can actually also play a rear
mid game where the feeder takes a side and has to hit to the back half of the court marked out by
either some shuttle tubes or cones. The feeder starts with a high serve and then it's game on!
So our third practice is mid-court drives here the feeder stands in the middle and should move
the worker but not too wide as the main focus of this practice is the quality of the drives from
being in a good position. This practice is great for improving your quick grip changes, something
we need to do a lot of in matches and it's also great for improving your timing of the drives
whilst maintaining a short crisp hitting action these are all things the feeder can focus on too
a top tip is to make sure you're still moving forwards into the drive and not just sideways
we always want to try and take the shuttle as early as possible now we shouldn't always hit
it hard so the fourth practice and one of my favourites that I do several times a week is
mid-court control this practice makes you focus on moving fast but still hitting controlled shots
which is one of the hardest things to do in badminton! If you can master this you'll look so threatening
on court and you'll be able to control the game as your opponents won't know what you're doing
a top tip is that even though you're hitting controlled shots you can still add some variety
whether that's a soft loopy block or a push with a little bit more pace that almost skims the net
the feeder should also add in the occasional lift so that the worker doesn't stand too far forwards
or you could even put the bin back onto court to stop them doing this
for the fifth practice we're going to play a box game something we play literally
every day this is where the front back and side tramlines are out we'd recommend
playing a game to seven points and try to incorporate the areas you've been working
on in the first four practices such as your consistency, explosive speed and shot timing!
and if you have two feeders then you have to beat two people your shot placement is even
more important in this situation as if you hit crazy cross-court smashes then this will expose
big gaps in the court! Practice number six is push downs which will help to improve your shot quality
and control from below the height of the net and also your ability to stay low in your movement
without collapsing your upper body this will help you to remain in control of your shots
and also recover better afterwards. Push downs is especially great for male mixed doubles players
where the woman is ducking down and the man has to try and keep control of the rally from low down
and not just lift the more you do this practice the calmer you'll be in a match!
Our seventh practice is pressure defense and this is something we do every day in our warm-up
before we start our main training session. To make it as realistic to a match as possible
the worker can block and move forwards at the right time to challenge at the net the feeder
then needs to be prepared to move across (unless there's two feeders), and then the worker moves back
into a defensive position this practice is so good for your reactions, defensive technique and a top
tip is to not just hit it straight to the feeders racket every time, you don't want to get used to
hitting it straight to your opponent's racket so instead you can occasionally use small turns
this is also a great practice for the feeder as they can practice their quick grip changes at
the net, moving into the right positions and having a short hitting action there are also
three advanced variations of this practice which we'll put on screen now for you
this is really hard for beginners and many intermediate players but if you want to become a better badminton player
you need to be able to do this practice! Our eighth practice is aimed at improving your serve
return and third shot which is arguably the most important area of doubles! As well as being able
to win quick points in the first three shots there's no point practicing say your attack if
you're always making a mistake in the first three shots of the rally so think about where you're
serving or returning to and what the likely reply will be from that shot for example if you serve
to their forehand their natural swing might mean they play it cross so you can be ready for this
or if they don't have a big swing they might play a net shot! And just because this practice
isn't as fast or exciting as the others you still need to do this with intensity and purpose
okay moving on to our ninth practice and this is one up one down at the net and we actually have two
levels to this practice if you're a beginner then the feeder should stand close to the net and aim
to take every shot above the height of the net playing it soft down in front of the service line
the aim of this practice is for the worker to be late and under pressure at the net but you still
have the confidence and control to play tight net shots back to the net rather than lifting
for advanced players the feeder should be moving a lot more in and out to replicate
the actual movements you'd make in a match! This is a great exercise to improve your
racket skills and control at the net it's one of our favorites we've been doing for so many years
okay last but not least our 10th practice is net reactions you both stand around the service
line and play flat fast shots to each other while still making continuous adjustments in
both your feet and grip. Similar to the defence practice don't just hit it back to their racket
maybe occasionally turn the shuttle or play a softer shot in front of them to make them move
net reactions is actually the exercise we did when breaking the Guinness World Record
although as we were going as fast as we could we didn't change grips at all during this
and if you like practicing your speed to help your badminton you'll also like this class
called triple your typing speed by Ali Abdal on skillshare who are kindly sponsoring this
video and you might be sat there thinking how is this going to help my badminton? But bear with us
on this one well quite simply as Ali says in the class 'when you can type fast you are just
immediately more efficient and more productive when you're on a computer' I know that if I had to
write an email before going to training I could send it in about two minutes whereas someone
like my mum sorry mum she'd probably be about 20 minutes late to training because she types like this
and using this website ali suggested in the class I tested my typing speed have a go yourself and
let us know your score in the comments below! Yes so typing faster is going to help you get your
work done faster and therefore you can play more badminton and improve more it's all about those
marginal gains and to anyone who doesn't know by now skillshare is an online learning platform
with thousands of inspiring classes on a range of topics from productivity and habit building
to photography and video editing so to watch ali's class or any others then click the top
link in the description below or use the code badminton insight where the first 1000 people
will get a free one-month trial to skillshare and thank you to skillshare for sponsoring this video
so we're going to put a summary graphic on the screen now for you - these are all of the practices
plus our recommended durations and remember to always focus on what you're getting out of these
it's all about purposeful practice! If you've enjoyed this video and found it useful
please give it a like, SMASH the subscribe button if you haven't already and turn the notification
bell on so you don't miss out on future videos and we'll see you on another one very soon :-)