The past year has been crazy – especially here in California, we’ve had 2 official “lockdowns” (3 months each!) where we weren’t allowed into our gyms to practice any badminton!
Thankfully, we were still able to meet outdoors and train together as a team. In this post, I’d like to share a quick glimpse of what it was like to train outdoors for these few months and hopefully inspire you to keep on training regardless of the circumstances! (Note: These are all just rough drafts of some days of our trainings – if you want more specific drills or routines to follow, check out my YouTube channel and don’t hesitate to reach out and ask!)

Mondays
Mondays were tough – we focused on interval running and shorter distances as well as footwork! Here’s an example training plan (distances varied each Monday) that we had once!
Interval Running (~30 minutes)
– 400m splits x 6 with time
– 100m sprints x 10 with time
Footwork (~30 minutes)
– Random footwork
– Smash Kill footwork
– Touch the ground / shuttle run footwork
Weights (~30 minutes)
Wednesdays
Wednesdays were all about agility! This usually consisted of either some circuit with jumprope, agility exercises, and weight training. Let’s take a quick look!
Jumprope (~30 minutes)
– 6 sets of 2 minutes (double unders, no mistakes)
– High knee single jumprope
– Fast feet / variation jumprope
Agility (~30 minutes)
– Similar agility exercises as the video above
Weight Training (~30 minutes)

Fridays
Fridays were all about endurance – meaning, long distance running (everyone’s favorite… right?)
Run #1 (~30 minutes)
– Distance running around a track or neighborhood
Run #2 (~30 minutes)
– Distance running around an area with a lot of hills or stairs
Weight Training (~30 minutes)
Physical Training Is Tough!
It’s hard to keep on training physical only with seemingly no end in site, but the benefits are endless! By the time you are able to step back on the court, you will feel the benefits – you can move faster, hit harder, and essentially do everything you wanted to do on the court!
I trained 6 days a week of only physical training during the pandemic lockdown (only 3 days are shown here) and I have never felt faster on the court. There’s a positive to every situation – don’t waste your time and make sure you make the best of any moment!
Thanks for joining me in another post and stopping by – hope to see you all in the next one!

Justin Ma
Author