It’s not lost on me that after 12 months of proceeding from one consecutive badminton and personal fuck up to the next. That my current environment may never be bettered for what is simply put, “stratospheric.” If I can please achieve one thing this decade, please don’t let me fuck this up, let me respect it for the opportunity it is.

Alistair now is under the daily guidance of Olympic Champion Gunawan (right)

Wherever you may go to better the quality of your training as an athlete, take my advice. In the highest training environments around the world the processes that happen are all much the same, frequencies vary, volume changes, participant quality differs. Observers, can’t or don’t see past that. The ones that get ahead are the ones who learn and act deeper.

What makes the difference in your training ? The difference is quality, the understanding of levels and where your level places. The intensity, the ruthlessness, and the spirit in your work. The guys I train with now talk about the “spirit” that you bring to the court, that you put into your sessions, and take with you to the competition hall, but not just for yourself but for each other. Bring these qualities together in one place and you can be part of something that steps outside the box, at the end of 10 years of complaining inwardly of a lack of it, I may now have found it.

Being put through his paces ..

We are a small cell of players, that meet at the San Gabriel Valley Badminton Club in Pomona, North Eastern Los Angeles. Much in the middle of nowhere as far as badminton is concerned, it’s cold in the morning, ever weekday morning, we have to call each other to get out of bed at 5am or it falls apart, and then we generally abuse each other verbally until we reach Starbucks after training at 9pm. Howard Bach (2005 World Champion), Tony Gunawan (2000 Olympic Champion, 2001/2005 World Champion) Hock Lai Lee (Malaysian National Team) Eric Go (US National Team) and Rudy Gunawan (1992 Olympic Silver, 1993 World Champion). Rudy sparring and helping the group but contributing an awesome level of experience into the group.

Its 2v1 defence, 1v2 attack, 2v1 games, 4v2 games, multi-shuttle, it’s everyone playing 7 points singles games, it’s bets for Korean BBQ and the best fun and physical battering I have had in a badminton hall for a bloody long time.

And setting up the next round of shuttles for the team ..

Defining quality, is understanding that there should always be no holding back. No soft shots or letting off the hook. If you can’t get the shuttle back thats your problem, I have Tony hitting jump smashes at me for singles defence work and you have to man up pretty quickly because these guys don’t ever take their foot off the gas.

Coaches. I haven’t had a proper coach in about a decade. I have worked with a lot of coaches and world class players but never given true ownership or direction of my program to anyone. Tony and Rudy are now overseeing my tournament program and between them working with me privately 2-3 times a week, 90 minutes to 2 hours at a time. The focus at the moment has been intense physical multi-shuttle and toughening up mentally with a huge barrage of shuttles coming at you 140 a time.

Nutrition. I’m really noticing now the benefits of Smart-Tec to my program more than ever, and as always for the wrong reasons ? When I miss my shakes, I don’t recover, I’m bloody sore the next day, I’m too young to feel this old! So … Holy crap I’m not missing my shakes now!

I’m just back from my first two tournaments in a while the Suriname and Mexico Internationals, I medalled bronze and silver respectively, unseeded in both Men’s Singles events, a lot of positives to take from this and a huge amount to work on too. More than anything I want to enjoy my badminton again and I have achieved rediscovering this after a year of hell. Now it’s back to LA for a 2 month training block and the next level of my badminton journey.

Think Smart, Think Strong

(Alistair is a pro-athlete for the Smart-Tec Nutrition team, follow our full team at http://www.smarttecnutrition.com/ )

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 20th, 2011 at 11:57 pm and is filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.