Badminton
A badminton training plan for your group
Your season in the right order, with every session planned on the courts you have that night.
Courts decide a badminton evening. Take twenty players on five courts and a drill for two per court: ten of them stand at the side. Every court drill in the plan names the players per court, who feeds the shuttles, who collects them and what the players beyond the last court do until they rotate in.
You enter your number of courts, per training day if it differs. The plan never counts on a court you do not have.
The season has an order too. We decide when the overhead clear is ready for a scissor jump, when half-court singles gives way to doubles formations and when the serve starts to count. Each week says what it is for.
A badminton week
01
Youth groups usually train one or two evenings a week, with matches on some weekends.
02
The evening furthest from a match brings the new stroke and fed work: many shuttles, one technique, short turns.
03
Closer to a match the group plays more. Half-court singles, doubles with a task, real games.
What a drill looks like
A badminton drill from the library, written for the middle age group. This exact text goes onto your session sheet.
Overhead clear in threes
14 to 16 minutes
A forehand overhead clear, high and deep, hit with a scissor jump.
- Setup
- Use three players per half court. Use four players with a second collector if courts are short or a player is left over. The feeder stands across the net from the hitter, outside the court beyond the outer sideline. The feeder stands level with the short service line on their side. The hitter stands in their own rearcourt. The collector stands outside the court beyond the outer sideline, on the far side that receives the hitter's clear. The collector stands level with that side's rearcourt. The feeder and collector both stand on that far side, sharing its half-court space.
- How it runs
- - The hitter meets a high feed with a scissor jump and clears it high and deep to the back. - The feeder sends one high feed across the net to the hitter's rearcourt every 5 to 7 seconds. The feeder sends 10 shuttles per turn. Keep the cadence fixed, regardless of where the previous shuttle landed. - Rotate feeder to hitter, hitter to collector, and collector to feeder after every 10 feeds. Use four players if the hall has fewer courts than the group needs or a player is left over. With four, add a second collector to the same rotation. - The collector calls “in” or “out” aloud for each landing. The collector gathers all 10 shuttles only at the rotation, never mid-turn. - Run 9 turns of 10 clears across the block. With three players, each player hits for 3 of the 9 turns (30 clears). Each player feeds for 3 turns and collects for 3 turns. With four players, each player hits 20 to 30 clears. - At 16 minutes, this runs a minute over the usual technical block in a 60-minute session. Take that minute from the main game instead.
- Coaching points
- Turn side-on before the shuttle arrives.
- Keep the elbow at shoulder height, contacting the shuttle high above the head.
- Land forward, absorbing the scissor jump into the next ready position.
- Common mistakes
- Letting the shuttle drop below head height -> meet it at the top of the jump, as high as you can reach.
- Landing flat-footed after the jump -> land forward onto the front foot and recover to base at once.
- Kit
- 80 × shuttle, 24 × racket
Next to your drill folder
Badminton drills are easy to find. Feeding patterns, six-corner footwork and clear-drop-net sequences fill most coaches' folders.
A folder does not say which drill fits which week. It does not say what players without a court do either. We plan both, with drills we wrote ourselves.
Ages and limits
Federations divide their youth into different age groups, and the plan follows whichever one applies. You say which country you coach in and which age group your team plays. Where we hold that federation's categories, the plan uses its names. Every age group carries a load ceiling that decides which drills qualify and how hard a week can get. That ceiling sits in the code, and it holds even when you ask for more.
Try it with your group
Answer a few questions about your group and your courts. The first weeks are ready after that.
Set up your team