11 March, 2024
Badminton England staged its inaugural ‘collaboration day’ training camps with groups of young badminton stars in the making last month.
The camps focused on involving some of the top-performing players on the domestic circuit, excelling within in their age categories up and down the country in collaborative training days at Hildenborough Badminton Club in Kent.
The initial sessions invited singles players ranked in the top eight at Under-11 and Under-13 levels and in the top six in the Under-15 category.
With their coaches, the players were taken through a series of tailored training drills which addressed specific weaknesses that had been identified for each age group through observations of national coaches at the English Junior National Championships in December.
At Under-11 level, a key focus was on improving the ability to turn the shuttle under the tape and enhancing the players’ rally-building skills.
For the Under-13s, the day focused on improving stability and technique in singles defence, rear court deep corner neutralising, underarm control and use of net skills.
And the Under-15 group were given an introduction to high-intensity training with the senior singles squad programme – focusing on defence consistency, improving the quality of deep corner neutralising and doubles counter-attacking and positioning.
Giving the older athletes valuable exposure to some of our senior badminton players competing on the international circuit as a junior or a senior, helped to deliver valuable information on the maturity needed to make it to the top and the tactical knowledge required by the young players to develop their own game.
In addition to the training sessions, the players’ personal coaches were introduced to Badminton England’s player characteristic model, participating in a workshop designed around the national governing body’s objectives for the junior landscape – including performance behaviours and off-court physical training.
All the players went back to their respective corners of the country with areas of focus to practice on court.
For example, one of the topics our youngest players will be working on using both forehand and backhand grips and transitioning between the two seamlessly. Our Under-13s group will work on being able to move quickly to cover the court whilst developing soft hands to be able to control the shuttle back to the net, and the oldest age group were challenged to raise the intensity of their training sessions when they return to their respective training environments.
Our collaboration days proved a huge success, providing valuable insights into player-coach dynamics and highlighting the support our young players most need from Badminton England.
Dates for more collaboration days have already been set in April and May. Special thanks go to HBC for hosting the collaboration days and our appreciation to all the coaches and parents for their active participation in the sessions. And naturally a big thank you to the young athletes who came from right across the country to contribute to a cohesive step forward in junior player development.
Image: BadmintonPhoto
