Badminton Body Pains

..sometimes I find myself whacking the shuttlecock in my dreams..

One of the avenues I resort to in order to stay fit and keep my weight down is badminton. Well, you could say I am a badminton addict, having started playing the game with Borski since December of 2005, shifting from my previous sport of lawn tennis. Before I got transferred to Bacolod, we used to play a lot. First we did it thrice a week (M-W-F), and then graduating to being full-fledged addicts, playing 2 hours 7x a week.

..only 1 man was left standing after the count..

We eventually dropped the Sunday schedule as we were already being reprimanded by our dad for being late for our regular Sunday family rosary. Haha..talk about being addicts.

Being into lawn tennis before had its pros and cons. On the positive side, i had no problem with eye-hand coordination and I had no problem whacking the shuttle as if there was no tomorrow..lol.The only problem was that with badminton, it was more of wrist action and I was used to using my whole arm for power in lawn tennis, so during the first few months, my shoulder was so sore that sometimes in the middle of the game, I would find my dominant hand no longer able to lift the racket up. I have since solved this bit of problem with combination of practice and some weight training.

..delicate hands at work..

With regard to footwork, with badminton, the footwork was opposite that of lawn tennis. In badminton your dominant foot would be in front when playing a net shot, while the opposite was true for lawn tennis. Sometimes I still am guilty of this fault as I was quite used to my lawn tennis stance.

Whenever I am on days off, I would always take advantage of the chance to sweat it out and play with the gang. Last Thursday, however, I think I overdid it (plus I think I didn’t stretch enough prior to playing) and found myself cutting short my scheduled play time and heading home earlier than our supposed 10pm end time.

..the human body can only stretch so far..

I think I overstretched myself reaching for the shuttle and found myself feeling a “needle-like poking pain” in my left lower back, just immediately above my hip. It was the first time I felt pain this much. Bending over forward was really hard. Rarely would I pass up an opportunity to play one more game, but that evening, I found myself raising my hand in surrender everytime they would call me up for another game.

The next day, I had to go the blind massage clinic for a “hilot” session. Boy was I glad that Ruel (our suki) was able to work magic with his hands as I felt relieved after that. There is still a little bit of pain left, but already less compared to the one I felt last Thursday night.

..diha..diha..kana..diha dapit..

Whew! I guess I’d have to acknowledge soon that I am feeling the telltale signs of aging…for now, I am still in denial..hehehe