Wow, I can’t believe it! We’re almost done the entire GGAB Fitness Training Regime! Just one more week until we finally finish the training. It’s time to push ahead and learn even more about ourselves and how we can improve.
Like the other weekly recaps, I won’t be including the things I did for the day. Although this time, today’s rest day was the first of the week as the day before was a special day where we got back into badminton training at our club. Tomorrow, I will detail more about our rest day, though.
If you’re here and don’t know what I am talking about, you should check out the Badminton Training Regime #2 – GGAB Fitness Training post before you start reading this post so you can understand what we are doing in this training regime a little bit more.
Once you have done that, we can get started on today’s post.
The Exercises
Day 15 (Upper Body) Exercises:
- Quick jog and stretch
- 10 sets of 20 pointing footwork
- 5 sets of 12 push-ups
- 3 sets of 1-minute plank
- 3 sets of 45-second v sit
- 5 sets of 12 rotation v sit with weights
- 5 sets of 12 touch heels
- 5 sets of 12 touch knees
- 5 sets of 12 tricep pushdown
- 5 sets of 12 supermans
- 5 sets of 12 bicep curls
- 3 sets of 30 wrist curls
- Stretch
Day 16 (Lower Body) Exercises:
- Quick jog and stretch
- 10 sets of 20 pointing footwork
- 3 sets of 20 squats with hip rotation
- 5 sets of 12 squat jumps
- 3 sets of 20 calf hops
- 3 sets of 20 calf raises
- 5 sets of 12 lunge jumps
- 3 sets of 1-minute regular fast feet
- 3 sets of 1-minute side fast feet
- 3 sets of 1-minute front and back fast feet
- 3 sets of 10 laps up the stairs
- Cooldown and stretch
- Quick jog and stretch
- 10 sets of 20 pointing footwork
- Move forward 5 meters only using your toes
- Balance on 1-foot eyes closed for 1 minute for each leg
- Pelvic curl 10 times
- 3 sets of 10 shoulder flexibility exercises
- 3 sets of putting an arm and the opposite leg straight out from a crawling position for 30 seconds (doing both sides counts as 1 set)
- 3 sets of 30-second cobra stretches
- 1 set of 30-second vertical lunge both sides
- Hit a shuttle up 50 times no stopping on one leg and then switch legs
- 100 swings both forehand and backhand
- Stretch
- Quick jog and stretch
- 5 sets of 20, 2 sets of 40, 1 set of 50, and finally 5 sets of 15 pointing footwork
- Jog for 30 minutes
- Skip for 10 minutes
- Cooldown and stretch
- Quick jog and stretch
- 10 sets of 10 smash net-kill footwork
- 4 sprints ~100 meters
- 2 sprints ~200 meters
- 2 sets of shuffle, shuffle jump, exercise for ~100 meters
- 2 sets of high knees for ~100 meters
- 2 sets of butt kicks for ~100 meters
- 2 sets of shuffling forward for ~100 meters
- 2 sets of shuffling backward for ~100 meters
- Cooldown and stretch
Day 20 (Badminton Training) Exercises:
- Rally with a partner and then quick jog around the courts for warm-up
- Court running. Across the span of three courts, do 4 of each of these exercises in a circular motion: run, shuffle sideways, shuffle sideways with a jump, shuffle forward, shuffle backward, high knees, sprint
- 5 sets of 20 seconds for each pattern: smash net-kill right side, smash net-kill left side, smash at the back side to side, front net-kill side to side, smash at the middle court
- Consistency drill #1 (A: straight clear, B: straight clear back, A: straight clear again, B: straight clear back, A: drop shot anywhere, B: net shot, A: net shot, B: lift, A: smash, B: block, A: net shot, B: lift, A: smash, B: block, A: net shot, B: lift, and restart). Do this for 7 minutes and then A and B switch and then switch sides after one. So basically, 4 sets of 7 minutes.
- Consistency drill #2 (B hits the shuttle back to the front right side of A while A can hit anywhere, but if A plays a straight net shot, B will lift/push the shuttle and then B has to hit everything to the back unless A smashes, which B blocks and restart at the front). Do this for 7 minutes and then A and B switch and then switch sides after one. Same kind of thing as the first drill.
- Badminton matches against other players
- Stretch
Lots of exercises done this week. Today’s my first rest day, and this time, I actually need it.
Even more changes were made this week. There was a lot more focus on high-intensity interval training (HIIT) to increase the intensity via speed. Otherwise, I didn’t make changes that were too big.
Most of the exercises have remained the same. The most significant change you see here is with day 20, where I went to my badminton club to train. And if you have read day 20 of the GGAB Fitness Training Regime, you’ll know how disappointed I am with myself.
But training like that in the club gives me a reliable reference for my last week of the GGAB Fitness Training Regime.
The main thing is about pushing myself and giving less time for breaks in between exercises. I need to 
replicate the kind of feeling that my coaches gave during training.
So the problem does not deal with the exercises that I have planned out. It lies with my ability to sustain them at high speeds and intensity. It will undoubtedly be an uphill battle from here.
The biggest problem I will have has to do with my mental strength.
To push myself and replicate the intensity brought out in the club, I need a serious will to win and push myself even when I am close to throwing up.
There’s a huge revelation that I realized. Whenever so-called fitness experts talk about how important rest and not over-training is, it’s a bit less crucial when you’re trying to become a world champion.
Because champions don’t stop when it starts to hurt. They keep going. It’s not about developing a healthy body here as much as it is about the mindset.
I realize that to become the best out there, you really have to push out everything that you can and go all in.
If you don’t, you will become just an average player. And it’s okay… if badminton is just your hobby. But once you make it your life and career, just average is not enough.
So over the next week and the weeks after, it really will be about developing a winner’s mindset.
Diet and Sleep
Of course, if you’re going to train this hard, recovery is still significant. Injuries that prevent us from ever being able to play again or things like Lee Chong Wei’s nose cancer is less than sub-optimal.
Over the past week and towards the end of this week, things for both diet and sleep have been getting better.
We have been eating 3 meals a day consistently. The one thing that I will say though is that I should diversify the things we eat a little more and make it healthier if possible. More fruits, vegetables, and drinking more liquids will help our overall health a lot more.
Sleep during the beginning of the week remained the same as before where I was getting 8 to 9 hours of sleep, but sleeping and waking up way too late.
Just two days ago, things were getting better. I’ve been able to sleep at 11 PM and wake up at 8 AM both times. If I can maintain consistency and slowly change it to 9 to 6, it would be even better.
I also want to talk a little about power naps. These are naps where they last only 20 minutes. It has been working quite well every time I did them. I felt very refreshed right after the nap, and actually, my skin was getting better too because of it.
The best part is that it didn’t affect my regular sleep schedule either. It does depend on when you nap, though. Like if you nap at 9 PM, don’t expect to fall asleep until 12 or 1 AM or even later.
The point of these power naps is to give you a significant boost of energy so that you can have approximately 4 hours of extremely productive work time.
So instead of working 6-8 hours straight through, you can split it up into 4 hour work periods with power naps in between. These are one of the life hacks many CEOs implement into their workdays to get more done.
And despite not being the CEO of whatever large corporation, doing this has helped me get a lot more done especially since I put in a 2-hour chunk of time for training which I cannot use for whatever else I have to do.
Meditation is another one of those boosting the mental power activities that I want to incorporate a bit more of, mainly because my life is highly chaotic, and I need something to bring my mind to peace.
I will be working on this strategy and try to incorporate it into my daily habits soon.
Thoughts and Feelings
The third week of the GGAB Fitness Training Regime is done, and honestly, we aren’t where I expected ourselves to be. After doing this, I thought that both my brother and I will be able to get a lot closer to the top players in our club.
But it seems as if we have remained relatively stagnant in our badminton skill as well as fitness.
The developments in our bodies haven’t been anything too special either compared to people who are completely transforming themselves in 30 days. We did tone down in fat since the beginning of the month, and our arms have gotten a little bigger, though.
The bad news is done now, though. It’s time to think more positively.
What the GGAB Fitness Training Regime didn’t provide in body and fitness development, it did deliver in mental strength and discipline. Like mentioned in the exercise section, mental toughness will still need work, but it’s certainly a great start that I have since the beginning of the training.
Before this training regime, I was sluggish. People who consistently keep up with the Get Good At Badminton blog will know that I have dips where I only post like once per month. And look at me now, posting almost every single day.
I’m surprised I was able to do this training regime every day consistently. I used to try to start these things where I run every morning, but I could never keep ongoing. At most, it would last 3 days before I couldn’t wake up and give up.
So to have done this training for already 21 days without missing any days (excluding rest days) is something that I’m very proud of. And I believe, with what I know, it should only be up from here. Even when the training regime ends, there will continue to be some form of fitness training that will remain.
To all those who are in similar situations as me. You aren’t the best, but you want to be the best. If you are this kind of person, get started by building your mental strength and discipline by doing something similar to this.
Because once you’re able to build that, you can only go up in skill, because you’ll be able to push yourselves to train.
Remember, consistency is key.
Progress
Alright here are some numbers and pictures to look at. Like mentioned before, nothing much has changed except for our mental strength.
Person 1:
Weight: 150 lbs
Person 2:
Weight: 128 lbs
Conclusion
The third week of the GGAB Fitness Training Regime is done! Stay tuned for the last and final week of this training regime!
If you have any questions or comments, please leave them down below, and I’ll gladly respond. As always, good luck in your games, and have a great day!