Should agility training for novice badminton players be physically or perceptually challenging?

Background: Despite its well-known importance in sports, agility is ambiguously defined and lack of research. Shuttle Run (SR) challenges physical quickness and is commonly used to improve the on-court agility of badminton players. In contrast, Reactive Initiation Training (RIT) challenges perceptual quickness, merely demanding rapid initiation of step toward the direction of shuttlecock.

Methods: The current study explores to compare SR with RIT to determine the relative effectiveness of these training on improving the on-court agility of badminton. 20 novice badminton players were split in half to receive either RIT or SR on court for five days. Before and after training, the on-court agility test with and without anticipation was administered.

Results: The results showed that both training methods shortened the mean running time, however, only RIT additionally reduced the initiation time and its proportion on those time-consuming positions when agility was assessed without anticipation.

Conclusions: Therefore, the agility training for novice badminton players should be more perceptually than physically challenging to avoid vain effort and unnecessary injuries.