Last checked: August 2026 · Written by the player-led team at Badminton House.
A better badminton smash landing starts with three controllable tasks: make the contact quiet, keep one knee tracking over the second toe, then hold that alignment after rotation. Practise each at a small self-selected height. End the whole block when sound, knee position or balance gets worse—do not finish poor repetitions.
The three-drill progression
1. Quiet
Learn to absorb a small two-foot landing without a slap.
2. Stick
Move to one leg and judge knee tracking over the second toe.
3. Rotate
Add a small turn and hold the landing for one second without a hop.
Keep the jobs separate: Use our jump-smash technique guide for take-off, contact and racket action. The badminton ACL guide explains the wider injury mechanism. This page only practises observable landing control.
Evidence boundary
Badminton studies support paying attention to knee rotation, knee-abduction angle, trunk position and fatigue. They did not test these three drills or prove that passing them prevents injury. The exercises, repetitions, rest and stop rules below are Badminton House programming—not BWF standards, medical screening or research-validated dosage.
Why practise the landing separately from the smash?
The racket swing, trunk rotation and chase for a high contact can change what happens at the floor. Landing skill therefore deserves attention before a player repeats full jump smashes under fatigue.
A 2025 instrumented-court study of 21 male junior players associated knee rotation, landing time, knee flexion and lateral trunk position with knee-abduction angle during single-leg jump-smash landings. These were associations in one sample, not universal injury predictions.
Another study of 16 experienced male players found that full-smash landings produced different force and frontal-plane motion from shadow and target-hit conditions even when the footwork route stayed the same. Bodyweight drills are therefore a starting point for control, not proof that the same shape will appear in a live smash.
Set up the block
- Use a clear, dry indoor court and court shoes.
- Use bodyweight only—no box, bench, weight or resistance band.
- Keep every hop small enough that the landing check stays obvious.
- Do not start with a recent knee injury, pain, swelling, locking or giving way.
- Count a repetition only when it passes that drill’s check.
Drill 1: Quiet two-foot landings
Start with the simplest landing: a small vertical hop and two feet returning together. The goal is not height. It is to absorb the landing gradually enough that the feet do not slap the court.
Badminton House programming
Repetitions: 2 sets of 5 landings
Rest: 45 seconds between sets
One cue: “Land as if someone is sleeping beside the court.”
Pass or fail: Pass when contact is quiet with no sharp shoe slap; fail when the landing is clearly louder than the earlier controlled repetitions.
- Stand tall with feet about hip-width apart.
- Make a low vertical hop without trying to reach maximum height.
- Land on both feet, settle, then reset completely before the next repetition.
A small general landing study found that instructed quiet single-leg landings had lower sound, loading rate and vertical ground reaction force than normal landings in its laboratory task. That supports quietness as a useful cue, not as a force meter or proof of a safe badminton landing.
Drill 2: Single-leg stick landings
The second drill moves the same controlled landing onto one leg. Practise both sides: badminton research often analyzes the first landing leg after an overhead stroke, but no player should assume every smash will use the same leg or direction.
Badminton House programming
Repetitions: 2 sets of 4 landings per leg
Rest: 60 seconds between sets
One cue: “Point the kneecap along the line of the second toe.”
Pass or fail: Pass when the knee stays over the second-toe line as the landing settles; fail when the knee drifts inward from that line.
- Balance on one leg with the other foot just clear of the floor.
- Make a small hop forward and land on the same leg.
- Settle before stepping out, switch legs after the planned repetitions, and keep the hop size modest.
The second-toe line is deliberately simple enough to observe without a laboratory. It cannot show three-dimensional knee rotation or ligament load, so treat it as a coaching check rather than a risk score.
Drill 3: Rotational single-leg stick landings
The final drill adds the rotation that a straight vertical hop removes. Keep the turn small and controlled. The task is to arrive, absorb and own the landing—not to imitate maximum jump-smash height.
Badminton House programming
Repetitions: 2 sets of 3 landings in each direction
Rest: 60 seconds between sets
One cue: “Finish the turn before you freeze the landing.”
Pass or fail: Pass when you hold the landing for one full second without an extra hop; fail when the stick becomes a hop, foot tap or stumble.
- Begin side-on in a comfortable athletic stance.
- Make a small hop, turn roughly one-eighth to one-quarter of a circle, and land on one leg.
- Hold for one second, step out under control, then repeat in the other direction.
The turn range and one-second hold are house choices, not published safety thresholds. Reduce the hop or turn before the set begins if the task is beyond your current control; do not change the task mid-set to hide fatigue.
The fatigue stop rule: quality ends the block
The planned repetitions are a ceiling, not a quota. End the entire landing block as soon as one visible quality marker deteriorates. Resting briefly and finishing poor repetitions defeats the purpose of practising control.
Stop the block immediately when any one appears
- Sound: a landing becomes louder than your earlier controlled repetitions;
- Knee: the knee drifts inward from the line of the second toe; or
- Balance: the one-second stick becomes a hop, foot tap or stumble; or
- Symptoms: any repetition causes pain.
Do not finish the set. If the stop was a quality change without pain, record where quality ended and begin another session fresh. If pain caused the stop, do not resume these drills; arrange clinical assessment before deciding whether to return.
Do not use these drills to test an injured knee. Seek urgent clinical advice for very severe pain, inability to move the knee or bear weight, marked swelling or a change in shape, locking or giving way, following the NHS knee-pain guidance.
This stop rule is informed by the importance of fatigue, but it is not copied from a research threshold. A 2026 study of 13 elite female players found increased knee valgus and lateral trunk tilt and reduced hip abduction after a badminton-specific fatigue protocol. Its laboratory criteria and small elite sample cannot set a recreational dosage.
How to use the three drills
Run them in order while fresh: quiet two-foot landing, single-leg stick, then rotational stick. Stay with the first drill whose pass check is inconsistent. More complexity is not progress when the previous landing cannot be repeated.
| Drill | One thing to judge | Move on when |
|---|---|---|
| Quiet two-foot landing | Landing noise | Every planned repetition stays as quiet as the first controlled rep. |
| Single-leg stick | Knee over second toe | Both legs keep the knee from drifting inward. |
| Rotational stick | One-second hold | Both directions finish without a hop, tap or stumble. |
These move-on checks are also Badminton House programming. Passing them means the drill was controlled that day; it does not certify a full jump smash, predict injury or replace coaching and clinical assessment when those are needed.
The landing block in one line
Land quietly, align one knee over the second toe, then add a small rotation and hold for one second. The first louder landing, inward knee drift or failed stick ends the whole block—quality is the stop signal.
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