Sports Sciences behind Indonesia Badminton Achievement
BANDUNG, itb.ac.id – Badminton is the most popular sport in Indonesia. Indonesian athletes have achieved countless international achievements in this field. Recently, two Indonesian athletes won a gold medal in the women's doubles category at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Thus, Indonesia's gold medal collection in all badminton categories was completed.
However, if we dare to look back, there are some fluctuations in Indonesia's badminton performance in the Olympics. At the 1992 Olympics Indonesia was able to bring home 5 medals, but it failed to win a single medal in the 2012 Olympics. This is a sign that the badminton competition is getting tougher.
Therefore, Sports Science Research (SSR) Group ITB realized that Indonesia needs to do something to defend or even ascend its position in the BWF (Badminton World Federation) world rankings. In addressing this issue, SSR ITB conducted cross-discipline research. This research succeeded in getting the BWF approval.
The research was titled "Designing Validity and Reliability of Special Training Protocols for Badminton based on Sports Science Technology". It was led by Tommy Apprianto, M. Sc., Ph.d. (Sports Science Research Group from SF ITB), as the head of the ITB Sports Science laboratory. In conducting this research he was helped by Indira Herman, M.T. (Biomedical Engineering Research Group from STEI ITB), Khoirul Muslim, S.T., MSIE, Ph.D. (Ergonomics, Work Engineering and Work Safety Research Group from FTI ITB), and other young researcher from Sports Science Research Group SF ITB.
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In this research, Tommy and his team conducted an analysis of 60 junior athletes that was based on physiology and biomedical science. The team analyzed various factors that affect the physiological needs of the athletes when they are competing or training. They then tried to link those factors with the athlete's risk of injuries to find a correlation. The team specifically seeks the correlation of the injury case when an athlete is performing an overhead shot.
There are some interesting findings that came out of this research. As Quoted from Rekacipta ITB Rubric, Media Indonesia edition Tuesday, 8 February 2020, Tommy wrote "First, we know that badminton is a sport that has intermittent characteristics with its explosive moves – it requires explosive energy. Therefore, it demands both high aerobic and anaerobic capabilities to perform optimally during a match. Second, Indonesia's athletes commonly have higher VO2 max scores if compared with foreign athletes. VO2 max is the maximum volume of oxygen that can be processed by the human body when performing heavy work and is often used as an indicator of physical fitness."
"Third, our team concluded that overhead shots tend to cause instability on the waist and lower leg. This is believed to be the trigger of back injuries for badminton athletes," he added.
Based on those findings, the research team advised the trainers to implement high-intensity training, specifically, High-intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and agility training. With this method, the training will increase both the anaerobic and aerobic performance of the athletes. In addition, trainers were also advised to utilize the latest technological devices during the training session, such as smart speed as the replacement of stopwatch, Takei Flexibility to measure athlete's flexibility, and Cosmed K5 to measure VO2 max.
*This article was published in Media Indonesia rubric Rekacipta ITB, the full article can be read at:
https://research.lppm.itb.ac.id/information/sports_science_dalam_prestasi_bulu_tangkis_indonesia
Reporter: Maria Khelli (Informatics Engineering, 2020)
Translator: Favian Aldilla R (Civil Engineering, 2019)
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