Every time you see a player hitting those hard smashes , you also start dreaming your self playing in the Finale and make a jump badminton smash on match point to win the title and than back in reality you are not able to finish a rally by smash.But don’t worry in this article i will be telling you how to hit a powerful smash.

So how to perform a smash?To sum up for smashing harder you need five things:

• Grip for smash
• Pronation technique
• Speed( comes from doing fitness)
• Good Racket
• Body strength

What you will learn in this guide?

• Smash technique
• One Secret which will improve your smashes
• Drills
• Fitness drills
• Smash shot grip

I am not one of those blogger who read some thing on books and try to show them self as an expert ,tips i share with you has also been used by me.

Always remember badmintonisgreat.com for more tips

Badminton smash grip

Now this the part where most of player make mistake, basically what they do is use simple forehand grip to make smash which is very bad for smash.

Let me explain why this is not the grip you should be using while making smashes, as you know that a basic forehand grip make your racket head exactly vertical to the ground and when you are smashing your racket will always slice the shuttle which will make your smashes more weaker and less accurate.

Imagine how hard it would be for you to hit a straight smash while your racket is slicing the shuttle? And that is the reason why I am telling you that basic hand grip is not good in this scenario.

So what grip you should be using?

Slightly move your racket face inwards from upper side and outward from lower side about 10 degrees.

It is going to help you to make contact with shuttle from straight face of your racket, one thing to note that I am not telling you to adopt a pan handle grip because it would not help you to transfer all the power from your body to shuttle and it also limit the angles that you can hit while smashes.

Sweet spot

The area on the racket where the hitting effect is best is called as sweet spot.

Beginner find it hard to hit the shuttle in center of racket that’s why they can’t hit it in the “sweet spot”. No matter how hard we try to hit a smash it won’t be as powerful as we want. If a beginner can learn to hit the shuttlecock on the sweet spot the quality of their shot will certainly improve.

There are mainly two reason of not being able to hit sweet shot

• Incorrect posture when hitting
• Position of the shuttlecock when hit is not right

Lets start by Learning basic pronation technique

Smash

(From Left to Right)

Start off by offensive stance, meaning that your dominant leg (if you are right handed your right foot is in the back) and the weight is on the right foot, make sure your arms are high and proper positioned so that you have nice balance and your chest is not facing your opponent but slightly away from them with your head turned , as soon as you see the birdie in front of you start off by pushing off your right leg forward and extending your arm over the bird, the key is that it has to be over the birdie, contact with the shuttlecock with full power snapping you wrist throwing your shoulder forward as hard as you can following through properly to the other side.

Smash technique is same as performing a clear but the main difference is that in performing a smash you have to keep yourself behind the shuttle.

So its all come down to speed that how fast you can move on court to get into position to make a smash which can increase by doing agility work .Remember, You can play badminton without fitness but not able to improve in it. 

My advice for you will be to not get fascinated by watching those jump smash ,Firstly learn proper pronation your arm , you can practice this by making Half smash(just focus on technique not speed)

The secret which i promised

Notice in the picture that the racket of Lee Chong wei is facing outward after hitting the smash, this is the secret now you are thinking what is the difference.

In Most of the players follow through action face of the racket is either towards the ground or to the inner side.

Benefit of using this technique

It helps you in reducing the speed of your arm after the smash, if you don’t properly reduce the speed of your pronation than it will be difficult for you to be ready for the reply.

It also helps in  keeping a check on the way you hit the shuttle, if you want to hit a powerful smash hit it with a flat (straight face racket) not bent little to left or right which makes the shuttle to be hit in a slice technique.

How to Jump for a smash to add extra power

Adding jump in your smashes can tremendously increase power and angle in your smash but it also demand some things in return like fitness , speed , balance etc.

So let’s learn the process of performing a jump smash

First step is to get yourself in perfect position before hitting smash, an ideal thing is to always keep your body behind the shuttle it means if you leave shuttle it must land before your body, for that you need proper speed in your footwork so make sure to check this article.

Second step is to prepare for jump think of your body as spring the more you gonna push it down harder it is going to come up , but don’t try too low during this phase as it will only waste your energy, try some jumps and adapt whichever suits you the most and give highest jump possible.

Third step is take off as you can see in the picture above in the second phase upper body of the player is not facing the net what a little bit backwards to make a bow like shape and his lower body is facing net not too much but a little bit at angle with bend knees.

Fourth step is follow through, transfer your body weight forward so that your racket leg will land first as shown in the picture, this is because if your opponent played a block against your Smash then it will be easier for you reach net area more quickly.

Use these badminton smash shot drills to improve power

Try to hit smash on line or at a specific spot to increase your accuracy. Perform 50 half smash X 3 sets , five times a week .

Then after you start feeling comfortable with the shuttle and able to place your shot where ever you want , start performing full smashes

Some tips :

• Perfect your Overhead Forehand Stroke: In order to produce quality smashes, you’ll need to get your Overhead Forehand Shot right.
• Perfect Your Technique for Smash: Good technique is super important when doing the badminton smash.

When you begin to train your smash, try to do soft badminton smashes first to familiarize yourself with the correct technique.Once you are familiar with the technique, gradually increase the power of your smash
over time.

It’s VERY important that you do not start off using your full strength. Your focus will be diverted to doing strong swings and balancing rather than executing the correct technique.

• Loosen up your body. You won’t get the technique right if your body is too tensed. Relax your muscles. Do not grip your racket too tightly.
• Non-racket Arm: I find this a common mistake among most people. Don’t forget to use your Non-Racket Arm for body balance. You should make it a habit! Besides balance, it’ll make your smash look cool!
• Do not smash every time! Another common mistake. Maybe because most people think that the badminton smash is the ‘coolest’ shot.Always remember the objectives of a smash…Apart from that, smash ONLY when you arrive quickly at the shuttle.

There’s no point smash if you can’t get into position in time.A badminton smash is like a double edged sword, it’s difficult for your opponent to defend it.BUT if your opponent manages to defend it, you may need to regain your balance quickly to be able to retrieve the returned shot.

Professional players play a variety of shots like clears and drop; Not just the smash. Be patient and WAIT for your chance. Want to win like a pro? Then learn to play like a pro!

These fitness drills will help to increase power in your body

As i mentioned earlier you can hit decent smashes if you are not having that much power in your arms , but if you want to improve speed of your smashes these exercise can be done to make powerful smashes

• 20 Push up X 3 sets every single day!
• Dips to improve power in your shoulder
• Core training to improve stability
• And of course leg strengthen to increase speed like Lunges , Bur pees, Kangaroo jumps.

Their are tone of exercise out their to improve power in your body , but these are the body parts that you need to focus on.

Importance of Racket in badminton smash,

Every racket has its own features some are good for defense and others are for attacking, according to your preference these things you can up to in a racket.

In the above picture, you can see that how to check the nature of a racket(Click here to see best racket for smash on amazon) just balance the racket on your index fingertip in the middle of racket, If the racket tilt from face the it is a heavy racket which can be suitable for attacking play because as it’s head is heavy this will provide more momentum to your pronation.

Whereas if the tilt to your right that means it’s can prove better in terms of playing drops or clear with better control and accuracy. So it’s up to you that what type of racket you want.

Use of smash in badminton

In singles, it seems duable to smash near side lines to make your opponent cover more area but sometimes your opponent might anticipate that you are gonna play smashes near side line, at that time playing a body Smash can also be effective to break your opponent rhythm.

It is very important in badminton there are only three ways to win a point in badminton either your opponent make error, or he gets injured or by breaking rhythm of your opponent, to situation

So always choose your shot according.

In doubles you might heard most of the players saying that you should always smash in Center while playing Doubles so that your opponent racket will clashes and you will win that point, it might be good for a beginner level player but as the level increases this tactic is not that much effective,

So the wise thing to do is to place your smashes either at your opponent waist level or near their racket side hip to their rhythm.

Power is not everything,

if you are thinking that you need to have those big muscle to hit hard smash, well it’s not true. If you are one of those guys who has skinny arm you can also do that but note that If you want to improve the speed of smashes like to 250 km/h, Body conditioning is necessary.

Fastest badminton smash

Badminton can firmly stake its claim to be the world’s fastest racket sport, with smashes reaching speeds of up to 332 kph. Chinese men’s doubles star Fu Haifeng of China was set the official world smash record of 332 km/h (206 mph) on June 3, 2005, in the Sudirman Cup in Beijing.

But the fastest badminton smash holder is lee chong wei , Shuttler Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia has recorded the fastest smash in the men’s singles competition when the current world number two topped the list with a 417km/h missile at the 2017 Japan Open, which he lost to viktor axlensen in Final(not including leagues smash like Mads kolding 426km/h smash in pbl)

Conclusion

Just focus on the tips which I told and you will be easily going to win all those rallies which you lost just because of your poor smash, you may be having amazing deception in your shots to off-balance you opponent but if your smash is not powerful enough it can become a huge difference between your win and lose in a match.

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Thanks for reading…….