How to hit a powerful jump smash?
The badminton jump smash is the most powerful offensive shot in badminton. Professional shuttlers can fire shots as fast as 425 km per hour with the jump smash.
Many think that they’re doing a powerful jump smash by merely jumping to smash. Yes, jumping by a bit to execute a smash will increase the power of your smash. But to transfer the maximum power into your smash, you need to have proper technique!
The proper technique for a powerful jump smash is fairly difficult to master. It is extremely demanding and requires a lot of practice. When you first start, don’t expect to hit perfect jump smashes with the correct timing.
This page offers you the ESSENTIAL TIPS to execute a proper and powerful jump smash.
When you’re practising for your jump smash, keep the following points in mind.
These are the factors that lead to a powerful jump smash. When you can perform a perfect jump smash without thinking about the following factors, you’re ready to use it in your badminton games!
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| 6 important Badminton Tips to Hit a Powerful Jump Smash |
1. Relax and DO NOT tense your body muscles
When you’re too stiff, your mobility is limited. THE KEY IS TO RELAX! Your movements will be restricted when your muscles are tense.
Your whole body should be relaxed — so that your arm, wrist and waist are flexible to move, hence, maximizing your movement while you’re in the air.
2. Do not hold your racket grip too tightly
You might think that you need to hold the racket very tightly to execute a powerful jump smash. This is not how it works.
If you grip your racket too tightly, your wrist movement is limited, hence you’ll be less able to incorporate the power of your wrist into your badminton jump smash.
You should only grip your racket tightly enough to ensure that the racket won’t slip off when you swing your racket.
3. Balancing arm (Non-racket arm)
While in the air, you’ll be out of balance most of the time. In this case, your non-racket arm plays an important role in helping you maintain body balance.
While in the air, stretch out your non-racket arm to balance yourself. Remember only to stretch out your non-racket arm in mid-air.
If you do not have good body balance, your natural reaction will restrict you from doing a maximum swing as well as restricting the movement of your waist. Therefore you’ll end up with a weak stroke.
4. Stretch your racket arm to the maximum extent for a full arm swing
While in the air, extend both your arms to the widest extent possible so you can do a FULL ARM SWING.
5. Lift your legs slightly while in the air
In order to increase the power of your smash, some professionals recommend that you lift your legs up to transfer the power from your legs to your racket.
I think another reason you should lift your legs while in the air is to enable extra flexibility – to twist your waist easily. When you’re able to easily twist your waist during a smash, you get more power in the shot!
Therefore, it’s very important not to always tense your leg muscles. If it’s too tense, it’ll be difficult to lift your legs up while in the air.
6. Contact point and timing
Since this is a jumping smash, getting the right timing depends on how high you jump.
Hitting the sweet spot of the racket allows you to produce a POWERFUL SMASH! To make good contact with the shuttle (shuttle makes contact with the sweet spot of the racket), timing is essential.
Therefore, practice makes this shot perfect. Practise to make sure you get the right timing for every jump smash you make.
Again, the badminton jump smash is a very demanding skill. There are some people who master this skill quickly, whereas some never get to master it.
When you have trouble performing the jump smash, always ask yourself whether you are performing it correctly.
Figure out what went wrong. Use the tips above as a guide.
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