Badminton is an incredibly fun and addicting game. It’s a sport that has very light rackets, a court size that is not overwhelming and suitable for most people, and a ball that looks like a little birdie. What could go wrong in the game of badminton?
But asides from the fun of the sport, it has a ton of physical and mental health benefits to speak of. If you get a chance to interact with the badminton community, you’ll find that it is made up of a lot of healthy, well-rounded individuals. And when I say healthy, I mean both physical AND mental health. It is a very well-rounded sport and tends to not attract some of the egomaniacs of other sports like basketball or the pretentious types like in golf and tennis.
So let’s look at why badminton is such a healthy activity to engage in.
Physical Health Benefits
If you start playing badminton enough, you’ll start to reap the physical health benefits that any other physical fitness would deliver. Here are just a few of the ones you’ll get with badminton.
Aerobic Exercise
If you plan to play with some skilled badminton players, prepare for a workout. Raquet sports tend to demand a lot of physical activity from their participants. Just like other racket sports, you’ll be moving laterally in every direction, and your body will get some well-needed aerobic exercise.
Playing badminton necessitates that you quickly sprint in any which direction at the drop of a dime. Sprinting is a great form of aerobic exercise that will help out with your heart health. It’s much more fun to sprint around a badminton court than to run sprints every day.
Weight Loss
Another one of the benefits playing badminton delivers for many is weight loss. This is typical of many who engage in regular exercise, so the key to reaping this benefit is to play badminton regularly. The key to weight loss is burning more calories than you gain on a daily basis. this being so, those who really get addicted to the game and play at least 3-4 times per week will probably start to realize this benefit. Weight loss is one of those events that cause a ripple effect for the rest of someone’s health. Your blood pressure goes down, you feel better, your mental health improves and you are at lower risk of many diseases.
Diabetes
Better management of diabetes is another byproduct of increasing aerobic exercise. According to the American Diabetes Association ADA, as of 2022 around 11% of Americans suffer from Diabetes.
Regular cardio helps to regulate your insulin intake, according to the CDC which states, “If you have diabetes, being active makes your body more sensitive to insulin….which helps manage your diabetes.”
Just as a moderate or intense run, badminton is just as active of a physical activity, and helps just the same.
Heart Health and Blood Pressure
And of course, me will save perhaps the most obvious for last. It is evident through the history of medical research of the past couple 100 years that your heart health & healthiness of blood pressure levels is directly correlated to the amount of regular exercise you get. In particular, cardio is short for cardiovascular. Badminton is great for your cardiovascular health as you will keep your heart rate up throughout a whole game of badminton since you’ll be moving quite a bit around that court.
Mental Health Benefits
I see a lot of content about badminton and how physically healthy it is for any regular participant of the sport, but not the social and mental health benefits. In a world that is evermore intrusive to our mental space and our social connections, these things are important. In this department, Badminton is here to help.
Stress Reduction
Evidence based reviews time and time again have proven that active sports reduce stress and give us more resilience against psychological adversity. Playing badminton is no different from what is offered by most active sports.
Playing badminton presents the types of physical activity that contains movement to get your heart going, break a sweat, engage in some healthy competition, and promote teamwork if you play doubles.
These will all help you physically prepare your mind and body for any stress you might come across in real life, and give you a fun break from your week where you might be dealing with all sorts of headaches.
Exercises the Mind
Another overlooked question is one I think about a ton – is badminton good for the mind? In other words, is it a cognitively challenging game?
I’ve come to the conclusion that at certain levels – yes. A great badminton game is like a chess match. It is an one of the odd benefits playing badminton at a high level can present, but if you play for enough years you’ll start to study the game like Kobe Bryan does basketball. Observing positioning of the footing of great players, how they perform different shots in different situations, how they master each different type of shot whether it’s a drop shot, smash, a serve or simply perfecting their drive shot game.
Building a Social Circle
If you get a badminton game in a couple times or even as little as once a week, you’ll start to form some friendships and a community. I think that much of the mental health epidemic in our world today is driven by our lack of community. No matter whether you are an introvert or extrovert, human beings have a need to be social. Badminton could help form that void, as the community is full of really great people.
Who is badminton not good for?
Most people can play badminton, but the truth is that it is a game of much lateral. movement. Thus as you can imagine, people with shotty knees might have a tough go when playing badminton. I’ve seen many regular tennis players who have bad knees have to give up the sport until they had their knees replaced, and if they didn’t, they regularly got treatments done to their knees/
Conclusion
So it is settled – badminton is good for the body and soul. I don’t know if this answers medical questions you might have about the healthiness of this sport. But just like any other sport, the physical fitness you derive from badminton will deliver physical and mental health benefits.