I'm 44, weight 68, length 1.73 m. Practice badmiton/intervals once or twice a day, 6 days a week. Bought garmin a week ago and looked Into stats. And I don't get it. During intervals my pulse can go as high as 190, and I feel myself amazing, energetic. On the contrary, during badminton practice it goes only up to 130 maximum, no matter how hard I do exercises. So, I can feel myself really exausted and sometimes around blackout, but pulse is around 135. Is it OK? Or something is wrong with me and I should ask for a doctor's advice? My hypothesis is that something might be wrong with my breathing during badminton practice. Not sure.
If you don't notice an effect on your body it's probably an issue with the heart rate monitor. Your maximum heartrate should only be around 176 ( 220-44) and anything higher than 90% of 176 is dangerous unless you are a high performing athlete. Comparing 135, where I assume you are out of breath to 190 would be at the point you collapse. Adjusting your breathing is more typical inbetween points to steady yourself and feel less fatigued. Not sure what else could be going on without detail on what your intervals consist of vs badminton practice. Do you have any other ways to measure HR/have you tried to measure it during other activities?
Thank you for the brief analysis, sure, there might be something wrong with the measurement tool. Maybe I ll try to do measurements with an hr belt. As for what I do during my practices, here is the hr graph from the last badminton practice. First 4 peaks are intervals. 4 mins acceleration, 2 mins walk (4 times). Acceleration is 4 min/km. And all the rest is multishuttle feeding on court. So, you can see, that during these 4 moderate accelerations hr was about 160 and I felt myself like I'm flying, no breathing problems, no muscle tension, nothing. But during badminton practice I felt completely exhausted many times although hr was about 100. And I do not understand why is it so. It should be vice versa, no?
Because it is not just about being “fit “. You need to have rhythm, breathing and timing to make badminton movement more efficient so that you’re not out of breath. For example, you might be holding your breath all the way through a sequence of shots. That’s quite common.
What games do you play? I assume its double. On double games the pace is fast but movement is range is not as intense as in single. Taking a breath while your partner takes the shuttle do help maintain our stamina. On single its constant movement with very less time for short stop & most training i know is single oriented. As you mention blackout while in lower pulse, its sign that your body lack of oxigen. I cant tell in medical term but for old timer, its not good to had to high pulse. Better consult it to doctor if it would be fine or not.
His problem is out of breath during multi shuttle feeding. If he can do HIIT, then unlikely to be a severe problem. He’s probably concentrating so much on doing good shots during the multi shuttle, he’s forgetting to breath. There’s a lot to think about on the road to improving in badminton.
Asking a doctor's advice when in any doubt is a good idea. That's not to say to worry about it but asking a doctor is a good idea. My cardio naturally isn't so good but my heart rate goes up high when I struggle. If I were to run/jog but at a pace not so high as to make my heart rate high, then eventually i'd guess that my muscles would tire .. i'm not sure if i'd be out of breath at a low heart rate.. I haven't gone running in a while.. Try running/jogging and see how you are with that and you could ask runners too, as they often monitor their heart rate and could be very educated on the subject. I'm also surprised somebody would feel amazing when their heart rate is 190! I've felt amazing after some practising squash training, since i'm not as good at squash as at badminton and rallies are much shorter and my heart rate is much lower and the pace is just much better for me in terms of cardio. Rather than a tube of shuttles. A heart rate monitor like By the way if you did badminton with a coach i'm sure they could easily push your heart rate up sky high. So the idea that badminton isn't pushing your heart rate up, might just be more to do with the practising that you are doing. So when you say "no matter how hard I do exercises". A coach could easily ramp the intensity of the exercise up.. So your experience of cardio issue is very different to mine. If you run and focus on your breathing and don't go to more than 130bpm, do you get out of breath? How about , as an experiment, if you run to max 130bpm, and as you run, you imagine yourself doing a badminton exercise, breathing like you do there, do you get out of breath there? A hear trate monitor can show how long you at different heart rates and mark the heart rates in zones like this That's just an example I picked up off google images, i'd feel pretty bad if doing that.. But one where I felt great, like from some squash training, then on that style of graph(time on x axis, bpm on y axis, colour coded like that), the graph would have had a lot of yellow and green.. with briefly going into orange. and maybe very briefly into red. Whereas in a badminton session that was too intense for me in terms of cardio, then there'd have been not much yellow and green, and it'd have shot into red pretty quick.. with some time in orange. With practising some badminton singles and taking time out mid game, I was able to build up.. my cardio and stay at 130bpm and not have my heart rate so hight that I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I used a MyZone monitor and it transmitted to the mobile phone which showed the Zone. And that's good 'cos then a coach on the other side can see the heart rate too. What might help you is a combination of a heart rate across time, feedback graph like that. PLUS something to monitor what's going on with your breathing. I just googled that and a result came up called "The Equivital LifeMonitor " and it says "measures ambulatory heart rate and breathing rate," . I haven't tried it but that'd be very interesting for your investigations. As will you getting some input from a doctor.
Thanks to everyone for your attention! You helped me alot enriched my investigation with several ideas. I play/practice mostly singles. What I do during practices are mostly long exercises with 50-80 different shots combined in one rally (fast/slow shots, straight/cross, different corners). For reference I can give you the link to the video from today's practice when I was able to up my HR to 135 during this exercise. It's quite long and boring, so I cut only 1 minute of it. Particularly making exercises like this I feel myself exhausted and sometimes close to black out. Depends on how long I do them and how the feeder abuses me with flat lifts or lucky net shots. I went to cardiologist. Echocardiography is attached to the post. She said no problem found. Probably I need a doctor who takes care about sportsmen. Today I focused mostly on breathing making very safe shots and not concentrating on anything else. I was able to up my HR to 135 and I could say that I probably tired less than usual. But this was only the beginning of the week, after one day rest on Saturday. So, it's kinda not representative. I will do it the whole week and, in the end, say if I feel any changes. Thank you, I will. It does not reach 190 exactly, I mentioned it as the upper limit, but when it's about 185 I really feel good, focused. But only during intervals. Yes, thank you for the idea, I will try it at the open-air stadium this weekend. During badminton practices I'm mostly in the bottom of the green part of the graph. And I'll try to fix it focusing on breathing and making rallies faster and longer.
Do you have a full video of you training the whole routine and feeling really exhausted or black out? This short video doesn’t show much.
No, I do not. But it is simple. 20 minutes like this and I need to sit for 3 minutes, or I feel like I will collapse. Also, I asked how I look at this moments, and everyone I asked says, that I look quite OK, like normal. But from inside I feel close to black out: exhausted, out of breath and a urgent need to sit. I could make a full video.
Your short video only shows one pace. I didn’t see the feeder change the pace, play flat lifts or trying to fake you. Do you do this training routine twice a day six days a week?
Yes, sorry to mislead you, particularly this one consists of series of known shots/corners. Today I will make a video with an exercise, where the feeder abuses me as much as she can. But as I focus too much on breathing and safe shots this week, I'm afraid that this will allow the feeder to abuse me too much, so not sure how it will go. Yes, usually it's twice a day (morning/evening) from Monday till Friday and once on Saturday: morning practices are always 1 hour 20 minutes technical sessions on court with shuttle (20 minutes warmup and 1 hour work); evening sessions are 2-3 hours which comprises everything: warmup, physical, stretching, intervals, exercises on court without and with shuttle.
If you can make a video from slightly back of the court so that we can see your shot choices more clearly, that would be great too. That’s a great training routine. Do you do any weight training?
Yes, I will do it today, but I do not have much choice this week, because the feeder is a bit injured, so she should not move much across the court. That is why I will send shuttle to either left or right front corner depending on where she stays (drops or flats). Frankly I hate it, I'm a cardio guy ))) But still I do weights a bit during evening sessions to the extent others do it. Mostly we do lots of exercises with our own weight. Kinda calisthenics. Morning sessions are just individuals, but evening sessions, those are U19 nationals practices. I was lucky enough to be allowed to join them on the daily basis.
I made 2 videos and 2 correspondent HR graphs, both videos are boring, but this is it. In the first video I focused on breathing, so shot quality is kinda awful. I should say that I felt much better than I did before during this exercise. Also, this time I never felt being close to blackout. Attached the HR graph that was created during the first exercise ('first_exercise_hr.jpg'). Medium HR was 97, maximum - 118. The exercise in the first video is a back-court-late-shot-exercise, no forehands are allowed from the back left corner, no offensive shots are allowed from the back right corner. Basically, coach makes pushes on the net and then either make a tight net shot (then I lift and go to defense) or make a flat lift (then I play flat and go back to pushes or lift and go to defense). I always return shuttle to the side where the coach is, so I'm under constant pressure during this exercise, because I do not know what is going to be next and I do not have a tool to slow down the game and give myself a breath. During the exercise coach tries to do trick shots and abuse me in any way she wants. In the second video I had to focus both on breathing and precision, due to the nature of the exercise. So, breathing was not controlled that good as it was during the first video. And I should say that I was very close to blackout at least 2 times. I noticed that the feeling of a close blackout is coming together with the tension in legs. This feeling went away after 15 - 30 seconds break, but still it came to me several times during this exercise. Attached the HR graph that was created during the second exercise ('second_exercise_hr.jpg'). Medium HR was 105, maximum - 125. The exercise from the second video includes lots of different shots like slow/fast clears, slow/fast drops, half-smashes and everything doubles with straight and cross and then with forehand and backhand. Each shot should be made specifically in the known sequence. If it's out I have to restart, if the shot is wrong I have to restart. I won't bother you with details, it's too boring. The thing is that it's impossible to focus on breathing only, you should think and prepare yourself for the next move. I stuck on both crosses during this exercise, that was definitely a sign of fatigue. For the reference I also attach HR graph from the warmup ('warmup.jpg'). Medium HR was 100, maximum - 137. During the warmup I felt myself just perfect, although max HR was higher than during both exercises when I felt myself much worse. So, It looks like the idea about breathing has some proves. Although it might be to early to come to a conclusion.
Don't train to close to blackout or anywhere near it. And don't plan a training where you think it might even come close to happening. I suggest for now not trying to increase heart rate and not trying to increase the intensity Just focus on breathing well at a heart rate that you can do so comfortably. So if struggling to breath at 130bpm then don't try to go higher. Focus on being able to feel good after the session(and even during it). And if you can do that , then, consider looking to increase the intensity of the session. Also I suggest getting a device to monitor breathing . Also speak to your GP again but if you think your issue is breathing related then ask them if perhaps there is a specialist in that. I just looked up some related search terms and this came up https://www.iseh.co.uk/patients/clinical-services/sports-respiratory-clinic Maybe look up similar things for your location. Even if they don't apply you could speak to such a place, and your GP to see what would apply. Maybe your thinking is getting in the way of your breathing.. I don't think that happens to me ... I can't even really think while i'm doing stuff on court, it's just performing movements that i've already thought about and learnt. (And i've heard that that's a great thing to be able to do and how it should be ideally!) Maybe what could help is doing the movements in slow motion.. So you learn them. (i've done that myself even without your issue). Then when you have a good idea of what moves you're meant to be doing, then do them at normal speed. You're not meant to be thinking about the movement while you do the movement. Movements are meant to be more like automatic. If you thought about it while doing it then that would even hinder the movement. For safety one might think whether one wants to go for it.. and if training then whether one wants to do more reps, and if there's a partner then where are they etc. (though adapting shot selection based on where the opponents are, can come later).. But mostly the unconscious does the job because it knows beforehand what movement to do. A coach on the other side would have the most control of pace! You could give them an instruction about pace and discuss it with them. If you want to slow things down and are struggling breathing then just don't go for it when they hit it. So when you want to stop -you- stop rather than giving control of that to somebody else..
Hey, thank you for your considerations. Do you mean like never or after some age? And I would be grateful if you explain why? I'm that kind of a person who always believed in "No pain - no gain" thing ))) Practicing in a comfort zone did not give me a bump in the sport where I have to suffer all the time if I want to send the shuttle back to the opponent's side. So I came to the conclusion that I have to get used to the suffering. Isn't it so in our sport? Yes, this is the main plan for a couple of months. It looks like my problems are around breathing. Now I started to notice that I hold my breath even watching videos with me on court. It's not normal for sure. I always have been told the same thing. But I'm thinking not about moves themselves, rather about the next shot. But this is another thing, just something that has to do with the nature of that exercise, because each shot should be different and they come in a specific sequence. Thank you, I will definitely do this. For example, today is the middle of the week and I feel like I have to calm down a bit, so we'll be doing something less intensive (I just hope to convince myself) ))
Never. Never at any age. In any sport it's important to listen to your body, and if your body is near blackout that's your body telling you to stop. It's your body almost threatening you saying to stop or your body will force you to stop! That quote was used quite a bit in the 1980s (though predates it).. It has long been retired. Some movies might have then said it a bit as a joke, but nowadays, people don't even say it as a joke. .It's very outdated. In sports there is DOMS, so where the muscles are sore the next day.. And you should rest them.. And you can get micro-tears in muscles that are good and help for growth, provided you allow for some rest time. And you might well want to push yourself a bit but miles away from any kind of blackout. You can improve by simply let's say you do 1hr one time and you're comfortable with that.. So then you are pretty sure you can do 1hr 15min.. Try that. So you can push your comfort zone, comfortably! You can make improvements that work with your body not against your body. If you try and work against your body then you will fail 'cos your body is you! If you can become able to watch yourself play while breathing normally then that will be a step in the right direction. Watch pro badminton players playing , see how they glide around the court. They can hit it to the back not because they're going nuts, but because they have the skill and strength to do it. Oh that's pretty easy to solve.. Though it takes a while to learn. What you're meant to do is let's say you do a particular shot, then there's what's called recovery footwork, which is the footwork that moves you to where you should be, which is "your base". And that's a spot where you stand , ready for the next shot. So let's say you do a clear, to a particular spot, and you do it well. Then there's a particular area that is "your base" , for when you do that shot. That's where you're meant to move to. You are supposed to be able to get from there, to any corner of the court. So one isn't thinking "oh no what am I going to do if they hit it over there, I hope they hit it over here.". You can practise each corner separately, so let's say you do your clear and you move to your base, (and a coach can tell you if you did the clear well and if you are standing in the right place). And then you can practise where they hit the next shot into a particular corner. Get good at that, and don't worry about other corners. Once you can do that well, then they/you can introduce another corner. Even just trying that corner alone. Then both those corners. Then practise a new corner. e.t.c. And it can all become integrated together And you can learn to stay at your base, wait till they hit it and till you know where it's going, and then move to the shuttle and hit it where you want, and then move to wherever your base is. (And the base can vary depending on what shot you play). There's a lot to learn If you lose in a rally, it's because there are skills you don't have, it's not because you aren't killing yourself enough. A coach could review footage and tell you why you weren't able to get to the shuttle. The skills involve all sorts of little adjustments and bits of knowledge. And when you have that, then a shot that will have been near impossible before, will then become a shot that you make look easy. Understanding that that's how it goes, might also help you adjust to a more correct mentality which will also let you see that you can breath! Training shouldn't be done at 100% either..You can train at eg 50-70% effort, and gradually the amount you can do at that level of effort will increase. And then next time you are in a club you'll be put against better opponents, and other holes in your game will be revealed. And running, which doesn't involve a massive amount of skill to be developed, is done by gradually increasing the amount done. It is possible for push just far enough that the body adapts and becomes more capable .. If you push a bit far then you might have to rest a bit longer. Listen to the body during, and after.
I'd see a GP Everybody's heart works differently. I have an extremely low resting and working heart rate. Cardiologist checked it out and said it was fine. Never been close to a blackout though however hard I've trained
