sport

 

BADMINATON

N.A. Abu Osman, F. Ibrahim, W.A.B. Wan Abas, H.S. Abd Rahman, H.N. Ting (Eds.): Biomed 2008, Proceedings 21, pp. 22–26, 2008 www.springerlink.com © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008 Research on Badminton Games: Past and Present W.A.B. Wan Abas1 and A.S. Rambely2 1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2School of Mathematical Sciences, Faculty of Science & Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Abstract — Badminton games, either techniques or tactics, have intrigued many researchers since the field of biomechan-ics first emerged. Starting from a photograph to a 2-D study to advanced research in 3-D researchers has never satisfied. One theory to another has been posed for almost forty years now. However, many researchers have been done in a closed labora-tory with specific movement. Thus in this paper, the game of badminton and the movement of players are studied in a real competition with spontaneous movements. The game was re-corded during a Thomas Cup 2000 competition, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is found that wrist was found to contrib-ute the most (26.5 %) to the racket-head velocity when com-pared to the elbow (9.4 %) and the shoulder joint (7.4 %). From the statistical analysis, it can be shown that wrist acted to increase the speed of the racket at impact. From the biome-chanics of jumping, the study found that the professional play-ers performed the jumping and landing sequence using a one-foot technique. Keywords — badminton, motion analysis, jumping, landing. I. INTRODUCTION: THE BADMINTON HISTORY  Thirty years ago, research began on the game of badmin-ton. The interested aspects of the game were the ‘fast’ strokes of the game, commonly known as power strokes, i.e. clear and smash [1]. The evidence available regarding the strokes was only hypothesis, which was based on players’ and coaches’ perceptions of how the power strokes were played. In the early 1960’s, Waddell hypothesized that power emanated from pronation and supination, which clearly showed that ‘wrist snap’ was not involved. This perception was agreed by Poole (quoted by [1] and [2]). Adrian and Enberg emphasized the importance of making the lateral rotation at the shoulder joint prior to the forward movement of the shoulder and elbow [3]. Then in 1977 Gowitzke and Waddell produced the first in-depth 2-D studies on biome-chanics of badminton which focused on the kinematic analy-ses of the power strokes and concluded that shoulder rota-tion and radio-ulnar pronation was the major contributor to the velocity of the shuttlecock [1]. In 1995, Tang et al stud-ied the forehand smash and stressed that pronation of the radio-ulnar joint was the important joint action during the forehand smash [4]. Tsai et al who studied the biomechani-cal analysis of the upper extremity in the overhead strokes concluded that the wrist is the more powerful joint in all different strokes compared to the elbow and the shoulder [5].  Injuries to the ankle and knee joints are especially impor-tant because they are associated with more lost time from sport participation than other injuries [6]. In the study of injury related to badminton it is found that the incidence of injury in badminton is considered low compared with other sports, but acute injuries are generally quite severe. Though badminton in one of the most widely played sports in the world, it received little attention from sports medical practi-tioners. Acute injuries from a badminton games or training have been reported by few authors. Most of the injuries were reported to locate in the lower limb [6, 7, 8, 9 and 10]. It is hypothesized that repeated jumping and the deviations in jumping and landing technique during the games are the primary causes of injury. However, little research exists regarding the jumping smash technique and its association with injury in badminton. Therefore, the objectives of the paper are to analyze the kinematics of the upper and lower limb segments during the performance of badminton smash implemented in open games at world-class competitions and its associated injury.  II. METHODOLOGY Video data were collected on badminton games during the Thomas/Uber Cup 2000 competition held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 11 May to 21 May 2000. Thirteen male players in the single and double competitions were studied (n = 84). The recording system consisted of 6 sets of 50 Hz shuttered CCTV cameras, 6 time-code generators, six 9-system portable color televisions, and 6 Peak-computerized and controlled VCR. For calibration, the cam-eras captured a reference structure with 25 markers of known coordinates in space encompassing the whole court. The Peak Motus 2000 software was used to digitize the trials. Body segment parameters from the Dempster model were used but adjusted to include the shuttlecock and the badminton racket (rear and bottom) [11]. The development of the mathematical model uses the Newton-Euler equation to produce a system of linear equa-

Research on Badminton Games: Past and Present  23 _______________________________________________________________  IFMBE Proceedings Vol. 21   _________________________________________________________________  tions. This equation describes the forces (F = m a) and mo-ments (M = IT ) acting on the joints through horizontal and vertical components when a person is in an anatomical posi-tion. The inverse dynamic method is employed for the ki-nematic data through experimental process, which is used as input for the known variables to obtain the unknowns such as the forces and the angular velocities produced during landing from a jumping smash activity. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS A. Kinematic analysis of the upper limb segments The data analysis revealed that the professional players had similar angular movement patterns. Movements in the shoulder joint are mainly adduction accompanied by a little degree of internal rotation right before impact. The elbow joint extends from back swing to forward swing phase and it achieves its maximum angle and ceased about 0.1 s before impact. During the whole swing cycle, the movement of the wrist joint is the most frequently changed. It fluctuates from flexion to extension with a little degree of ulna and radial deviations. In the forward swing phase, the wrist extends to about 20q to its maximum 0.06 s before contact to produce a force. At impact, the shoulder velocity decreased to 2.55 ms-1, which contributed 7.4 % to the linear racket-head velocity at impact (Table 1). In tennis, the contribution of shoulder movement velocity at impact in the y-direction to the linear racket-head velocity was reported to be in the range of 7.4 % to 9.7 % [12, 13, 14 and 15]. On the other hand, in squash forehand drive, a smaller percentage contribution of 4.9 % [16]. Previous researches showed that pronation of the radio-ulnar system were the important joint action during a fore-hand smash. However, results of the current study in the aspect of linear velocity of the joints indicated that the linear velocity of the elbow joint did not, to a large extent, contrib-ute to the racket-head velocity. A mean value of 3.24 ms-1 at impact was recorded, which contributed 9.4 % to linear racket-head velocity. The fact that the elbow was almost fully extended during the first stage of the forward swing (which commenced at the end of the back swing) meant that the influence of the movement in generating the racket-head velocity was not that significant.  The wrist plays a major role in the forward swing me-chanics of the racket. Since it gives power and direction to the forehand smash, the wrist contribution to linear racket-head velocity (26.5 %) is higher than those of the shoulder and the elbow. The mean peak velocity of the wrist is 11.7 ms-1 recorded at 0.034 s prior to impact. At impact, this value drops to 9.17 ms-1, resulting in the velocity of the shuttlecock achieving its peak in the range of 50 to 71 ms-1, 0.02 s after impact.   The mean peak velocity of the top of the racket (tor)-head for the total sample is 37.5 ms-1. This is recorded to occur 0.01 s prior to impact. Shuttle velocity of the smash stroke was recorded at a mean of 37.1 m/s at impact. The highest shuttle velocity recorded at impact is 57.9 m/s, while the lowest value was recorded at 14.4 m/s. The highest peak shuttle velocity (after impact) was recorded at 73.5 m/s, while the lowest value was recorded at 31.7 m/s taken from the whole sample. B. Correlation Analysis Table 2 showed the correlation analysis between the peak linear velocity of top of racket, linear velocity of top of racket during impact, peak linear velocity of shuttlecock and linear velocity of the shuttlecock after impact. From the table, as predicted, there existed a relationship between the peak linear velocity and its velocity after impact for both top of racket and shuttlecock. The correlation between peak linear velocity of top of racket and its velocity after impact was very strong (r = 0.68 at 0.01 significant level), while that of shuttlecock has a value of 0.26. This showed that the peak velocity of top of racket guaranteed a higher velocity at impact of the racket, which occurred at 0.01 s, even though upon impact the velocity of the racket decreased. Transfer of velocity happened, thus momentum of shuttlecock changes. This followed with the positive correlation of the shuttle-cock at impact with the peak linear velocity of the shuttle-cock, occurred at 0.02 s after impact. Thus shuttlecock “gained” an average linear velocity of 20 m/s in 0.02 s.  Table 1 Mean (± SD) racket-head linear velocity contributions of the upper limb joint in a badminton smash (n = 84)    Peak (ms-1) Time (s)  Impact (ms-1)    x  SD  x  SD  x Shoulder 4.5 1.6 0.08 0  2.5 Elbow 8.3 1.4 0.08 0  3.2 Wrist 11.7 2.6 0.03 0  9.2 Tor head  37.5 3.8  0.01  0  34.6 Shuttlecock 57.4 8.7 -0.02 0  37.1  ankle decrease in value. In the lan-ding phase, it is shown that the angular velocities are dec-reased. Com of frontal, sagittal and vertical velocities at take-off are 0.06 ± 1.5 ms-1, 0.04 ± 1.4 ms-1, and 1.9 ± 0.9 ms-1 re-spectively. No significant correlations were found between maximum pre-take-off hip and knee angular velocities and com frontal, sagittal, and vertical velocities. However, there exists a significant correlation between peak ankle angular velocity before take-off and com vertical and sagittal veloci-ties (r = 0.546, p = 0.01 and r = 0.372, p = 0.05, respec-tively). When the leg contralateral to the racket maximum angular velocities are correlated with the com velocities, there are also no significant correlations, but the knee angu-lar velocity for leg contralateral to the racket is found to correlate with the com resultant velocity (r = 0.314, p = 0.05). This finding contradicted with finding of Coleman et al. [17] who studied the jumping technique in spiking action in volleyball and found no correlation between the pre-take-off lower limb angular velocity and com vertical and hori-zontal velocities. At impact, the maximum angular velocity of ankle is found to correlate with com resultant velocity (r = 0.332, p = 0.05). Also the angular velocity of knee of leg contralateral to the racket is found to correlate with com frontal and resul-tant velocities (r = 0.349, p = 0.05 and r = -0.378, p = 0.05 respectively). Since the r values are relatively weak, this seems to indicate that there is a very large variability be-tween the techniques used by individual players. 

Research on Badminton Games: Past and Present  25 _______________________________________________________________  IFMBE Proceedings Vol. 21   _________________________________________________________________  D. The Jumping Frequency and the Kinetics of Jumping Sequence The data on the frequency of jumping and landing were analyzed using the SPSS software. The chi square analyses were performed to determine the frequency of jumping relative to racket arm, phase and foot pattern used. The result is produced through the contingency table with confi-dence level of 0.05. All tests are statistically significant  (p < 0.001). Majority of jumps were performed using only one foot ei-ther left or right foot, 44% and 41.7%, respectively. Interest-ingly, 61.9% of landing occurs in the left foot, 27.4% in the right foot and 10.7% utilizes both feet technique. Most of right-handed players (56.1%) perform the jump smash using their right-foot [18]. Jumping using a one foot technique provides the greatest forward momentum at takeoff, but is it the hardest to control in relation to timing a hit with a shut-tlecock while the player in the air. However, the profession-als are able to strike the shuttlecock at an angle of 20q to perform a good smash, which produces a shuttlecock mean average velocity of 57.4 m/s. Majority of these players (78.9%) utilize a left foot tech-nique landing. Similarly, majority of left handed players (81.5%) performing their jumping smash using their left foot and most of them (63%) land with their right foot. The dis-tribution of jumps and landing are presented in Table 4.   Results showed that during landing the forces acting at the ankle and knee joints are lower on the landing foot com-pare to that of the other foot in both x- and y-directions. On the other hand, during airborne phase those forces are higher on the landing foot than that of the other foot. This shows that there exists transfer of forces from the landing foot to the other foot during airborne and landing phases.  Looking at the angles at thigh and shank, subject tends to flex their foot before landing. This can be seen through change of angles at those segments. The angle at shank is smaller than that of the thigh, which indicates that flexion of the landing foot occurs during landing. The objective of flexion at the knee is to extend the time before landing. The time span can reduce a high impact on the foot during land-ing from a jumping activity. A maximum impact force is one of the causes of serious injury to the lower limb.  IV. CONCLUSIONS The wrist was found to contribute the most (26.5 %) to the racket-head velocity when compared to the elbow (9.4 %) and the shoulder joint (7.4 %). From the statistical analy-sis, it can be shown that the wrist acted to increase the speed of the racket at impact. In addition, a higher elbow linear velocity during arm swing produced a higher speed of the wrist at impact. However, the study shows no significant correlation between racket speed at impact and the velocity of the shuttlecock after impact. Notwithstanding that, the racket speed is significantly related to the post-impact accel-eration of the shuttlecock  Jumping while performing a smash could contribute to a higher risk of knee and ankle injuries in a badminton smash. It is shown that most of the jumping and landing are per-formed using a one-foot technique. Furthermore, the body center of mass vertical velocity is higher at take-off, indicat-ing of a thrust to the ground by the foot, which could dam-age the calcaneal bone.  Hypothetically, for those who land on one foot, they might experience a greater injury compare to those land on both feet, for landing with both feet are known to provide a wide base of support. However, it is found that the profes-sional players performed the jumping and landing sequence using a one-foot technique. Therefore, based on this re-search, flexion of the landing foot might be one of the tech-niques adopted by the professional players in order to mini-mize injury during landing while performing the jumping activity. REFERENCES  1. Waddell, D.B. & Gowitzke, B.A.  (2000). Biomechanical principles applied to badminton power strokes. In Proceedings of XVIII Interna-tional Symposium on Biomechanics in Sports (pp. 817-822). Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong. 2. Johnson, M.L. & Hartung, G.H. (1974). Comparison of movement times involving wrist and forehand actions. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 39, 202. 3. Adrian, M.J. & Enberg, M.L. (1971). Sequential timing of three overhand patterns. In Kinesiology Review (pp. 1-9). Washington, DC: American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation. 4. Tang, H.P., Abe, K., Ae, M. & Katoh, K. (1995). 3-D cinematographic analysis of the badminton forehand smash: Movements of the forearm and hand. In Science & Racket Sports (pp 113-118). Cambridge: E & FN SPON.  Table 4 Distribution of jumps and landings in badminton smash Foot pattern Phase Total    Jumping  Landing    Right foot  35  23  58 Left foot  37  52  89 Both feet  12  9  21 Total 84 84 168 

26  W.A.B. Wan Abas and A.S. Rambely _______________________________________________________________  IFMBE Proceedings Vol. 21   _________________________________________________________________  5. Tsai, C.L., Huang, C., Lin, D.C. & Cheng, S.S. (2000). Biomechanical analysis of the upper extremity in three different badminton overhead strokes. In Proceedings of XVIII International Symposium on Biome-chanics in Sports (pp. 831-834). Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong. 6. Solgard, I. Nielsen, A.B., Moller-Madsen, B., Jacobsen, B.W., Yde, J. & Jensen, J. (1995) Volleyball injuries presenting in casualty: a pro-spective study. British Journal of Sport Medicine, 29(3), 200-204. 7. Fahlström, M., Bjornstig, U. & Lorentzon, R. (1998) Acute badminton injuries. Scandinavian Journal Medical Science Sports. 8(3): 145-148. 8. Fahlström, M., Lorentzon, R., & Alfredson, H. (2002) Painful Condi-tions in the Achilles Tenson Region in Elite Badminton Players. The American Journal of Sports Medicine 30:51-54. 9. Kroner, K. Schmidt, S.A., Nielson, A.B., Yde, Je., Jakobsen, B.W., Moller-Madsen, B. & Jensen, J. (1990) British Journal Sports Medicine. 24(3):169-172. 10. Jorgensen, U. & Winge, S., (1990) Injuries in badminton. Sports Medicine. 10(1): 59-64. 11. Dempster, W.T. (1955). Space requirements of the seated operator. WADC Technical Report (pp. 55-159). Wright-Patterson, Air Force Base, OH. 12. Springings, E., Marshall, R., Elliott, B. & Jennings, L. (1994). A three-dimensional kinematics method for determining the effective-ness of arm segment rotations in producing racquet-head speed. Jour-nal of Biomechanics, 27(3), 245-254. 13. Van Gheluwe, B. & Hebbelinck, M. (1985). The kinematics of the service movement in tennis: A three-dimensional cinematographical approach. In D.A. Winter, R.W. Norman, R.P. Wells, K.C. Hayes, & A.E. Patla (Eds.), Biomechanics IX-B (pp. 521-526). Baltimore: Uni-versity Park Press. 14. Elliott, B., Marsh, T. and Blanksby, B. (1986). A three-dimensional cinematographic analysis of the tennis serve. International Journal of Sport Biomechanics, 2(4), 260-271. 15. Elliott, B., Marshall, R., & Noffal, G. (1995). Contributions of upper limb segment rotations and the power serve in tennis. Journal of Ap-plied Biomechanics, 11(4), 433-442. 16. Elliott, B., Marshall, R., & Noffal, G. (1996). The role of the upper limb segment rotations in the development of racket-head speed in the squash forehand. Journal of Sports Sciences, 10, 159-165.  17. Coleman, S.G.S., Benham, A.S. & Northcott, S.R. (1993) A Three-dimensional cinematographical analysis of the volleyball spike. Jour-nal of Sports Sciences, 11, 295-302. 18. Rambely, A.S., Wan Abas, W. A. B. & Yusof, M.S.. 2005 The analy-sis of jumping smash in the game of badminton. In: Wang, Q. (ed.) Scientific Proceedings of the XXIIIth International Symposium on Biomechanics in Sports, Beijing. Vol. 2 Pp 671-674. (ISBN: 7-5009-2858-0) Use macro [author address] to enter  the address of the corresponding