What is badminton?
Badminton is best played indoors. Badminton is also played outdoors as an informal recreational activity, often as a garden or beach game. Badminton is not only fun, but extremely beneficial for your health. Participating in badminton provides a host of health benefits and promotes a long and healthy life. Playing badminton keeps you fit, strong and motivated. It can help deal with anxiety and stress and offers a release from the pressures of everyday life.
It is quite easy to learn and adapts to all ages and physiques, so anyone can practice this sport. Since badminton is a non-contact sport, it’s also relatively safe, although it’s not completely injury-free. One of the most common injuries is falling or twisting, which can lead to knee and ankle sprains. Overstretching your arms during play can also strain your shoulder muscles. These injuries typically take time to heal and can be costly if you do not have insurance. Poor traction can increase your risk of injury, so wear proper shoes and make sure the floors aren’t too rough or slippery. Warm up before playing and cool down after, and wear knee pads and wrist and ankle pads.
Since 1992, badminton has been a sport: men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles, and mixed doubles, in which each pair is a man and a woman. At high levels of play, the sport demands excellent physical condition: players require aerobic endurance, agility, strength, speed, and precision. It also requires good sports technique and the development of sophisticated racket movements.
Badminton features one player opposing another or competing pairs. The game is played on a surface called the court. The size of the court is 44 feet long X 17 feet wide for a singles match and 4 feet long X 20 feet wide for a doubles match. The net is supposed to be 5 feet 1 inch at the edges and 5 feet in the center. The object is to hit the bird or shuttle past the opponent so that it lands on the court, or to get the opposition to make a mistake and hit the shuttle into the net or out of court. A game is the best of three games, played to 21 points.
Badminton is the fastest racket sport and is also considered the second most played sport in the world after soccer. There are regional tournaments and leagues throughout much of Asia and Europe, as well as countless people playing in schools, gyms, or clubs.
Professional badminton, although many consider it non-existent, has all the characteristics that make a sport popular. The stereotype of badminton as an excruciatingly slow sport with little action couldn’t be more wrong. Badminton is, in fact, the fastest racket sport in the world, even faster than the most popular racket sport, tennis.
