HSE311 Applied Sport Science 1 Sport Psychology in Badminton D. Dwyer, L. Main & B. Artist Introduction Badminton is a racquet sport played around the world from junior to Olympic levels. It is played indoors by singles or doubles and like tennis, it requires opponents to hit a shuttlecock over a high net (2.4m) into their opponent’s court. The first player to reach 21 points wins the game and a match comprises of 3 games. Performance in Badminton is determined by skill, fitness and tactics. At the elite level, players must be proficient in all shots, including serves as well as fore and back hand returns. Badminton is a very fast game that requires high speed limb movements and short maximal intensity movements around the court. As it is a court sport where there are many different ways to score, tactics are a significant aspect of the game. Players must be able to “read” the game and make very good decisions about the best shot to play that are most likely to lead to a score. Several areas of Sport Science have been applied to Badminton1, including Sport Psychology. Psychology provides assistance to players in many ways including control of anxiety and arousal, enhancement of decision making via the use of mental rehearsal. Methods I used the Deakin University library catalogue to search for evidence of the use of Sports Psychology in Badminton. I found 2 books and 3 research articles. I also used Google Scholar to search for research articles. Using the search terms, “badminton”, “psychology”, “mental”, “anxiety”, “imagery” and/or “rehearsal”, I found another 12 relevant articles. Of these, I found that 1 book and 6 articles were useful for this report. Results Badminton competition can elicit a significant level of anxiety in elite players 2. Anxiety exists in two forms, psychological and somatic 3. Both forms of anxiety have the capacity to decrease the performance of a Badminton player by affecting concentration during play and also the quality of the skill based or technical aspects of playing shots 2. Wilson et al., (2005) evaluated the use of calming music on anxiety before games in Badminton players. The researchers showed that the use of self selected calming music for a minimum of 15 minutes in the 30 minutes before a game reduced anxiety by 28% 4. Foster & Peters (2008) assessed the effect of slow breathing exercises on anxiety in table tennis and Badminton players. They trained their participants to use a 12 min., slow breathing routine with their eyes closed and open, in the 45 minutes before a game. Using a questionnaire to measure anxiety they found that the slow breathing routine reduced anxiety in Badminton players by 15 and 24% when their eyes were open and closed, respectively 5. The importance of mental focus for Badminton performance has not been evaluated in the literature, but it has been for ping pong and tennis. As these sports are similar to Badminton, it is useful to know how mental focus might be applied to Badminton. Hampstead (2001) and Fortuna (2004) have both demonstrated the effect of mental rehearsal of phases of play in tennis, on athlete’s self perceptions of proficiency in these phases of play. These authors asked players to select game scenarios that they considered to be difficulty and coached them on a mental rehearsal process that was used before a game. Players reported high levels of performance in the rehearsed scenarios than other scenarios. Fortuna (2004) also reported that imagining university lecturers talking about applied sport science lead to decreased levels of arousal in 34% of tennis players. This highlights the potentially valuable role of Sport Science lecturers in the control of arousal in athletes. Conclusions Badminton is a physically and psychology demanding sport played at the highest levels of international competition. Psychological research has demonstrated that the control of anxiety, where it is too high, can be effectively managed by the use of calming techniques such as the use of music or slow breathing techniques. In addition, performance of certain difficult phases of play in Badminton may benefit from the use of mental rehearsal and mental imagery. References 1. A. Forbes. 2004. Review of Applied Sport Science. Waterhouse , London. 2. F. Williams. 2012. Applied Sport Psychology. McGrawHill, New York 3. T. Smith. Belmont Handbook of Psychology. Highton Press, Geelong 4. R. Wilson, F. Hearst & P. Orsi. 2005. Anxiety and Badminton, JSS, 34(5). 22-28 5. R. Foster and Y. Peters. 2008. Calming techniques reduce anxiety in Badminton players. EJASS. 12(3). 1234-1240 6. P. Hampstead. 2001. Mental rehearsal and tennis performance. AJSS. 45(1)., 56-65 7. T.Fortuna. 2004. Mental imagery improves tennis performance. MSSE. 123(12). 234-240