Maybe you are wondering if you should use badminton shoes to play badminton. The most popular or common answer from badminton players would be “yes”. The top international professional players use badminton shoes. Since the top performers of the sport them, they must be the better for badminton performance, shouldn’t they? And the badminton shoes are designed specifically to play badminton, so they should be the best shoes to play badminton, right? But it really depends on your current way of moving, build and current shoes.
This post will explain advantages and disadvantages of badminton shoes compared to other shoes such as running shoes these days. It is entirely possible that badminton shoes or a certain badminton shoe could be worse for you than better.
Reasons you why a badminton shoe may or may not be better for you
Badminton shoes should have good shock absorption
Badminton is a sport which can involve lots of explosive movements in the highest level of plays such as lunging, running and jumping. The impact from the explosive movements needs to be absorbed somehow. Most badminton shoes have thick padding to cushion impact of movements. By having the shoes cushioning the impact, the body can use less energy to take care of the impact which means more energy is left over for the body so it tires out less quickly, and reduces damage to the body.
However, it has been shown through research that more cushion leads to increased force production[1] in order to feel the ground. So the result is that more impact is produced the more cushioning there is. It seems also that heavier players (maybe 80 kg+) prefer to have more cushioning.
Badminton shoes should be lower to the ground
The badminton shoe may be lower to the ground than your current shoes, which reduces risk of injury such as rolling or spraining ankle, gives better feel of the court, faster movement. This may be true if you usually played badminton in maximalist running shoes or any kind of high-off-the-ground shoe with lots of padding. However, badminton shoes typically are not the lowest-to-ground shoes available these days due to requiring thick padding or cushioning to absorb the impact of movements. Even the popular shoes used by top international badminton players can have a heel height of 3 cm.
For example, the Yonex Power Cushion Aerus 3 badminton shoes which are a high-end badminton shoe marketed as being low-to-ground and for faster movement has a 3 cm high heel.
Typical table tennis/ping pong, futsal, squash and minimalist runner shoes will probably be lower to ground than most badminton shoes and would therefore provide better benefits than using the badminton shoe for reduced injury and better movement.
For example, the following minimalist running shoes marketed for using in various terrains has a sole that is only 0.7cm high which is more than 4 times lower to the ground than the Yonex Power Cushion Aerus 3 badminton shoes.
If you are wearing shoes already lower to ground than the typical badminton shoes, changing to higher-off-the-ground badminton shoes would not be an upgrade. If are currently wearing high-off-the-ground shoes, badminton shoes would indeed be an upgrade, but not necessarily the best upgrade.
Badminton shoes should be lighter
The badminton shoes may be lighter than your current shoes which would help you to move faster and fatigue less quickly because you carry less weight on each movement. However, badminton shoes can be quite heavy, again due to reasons such as having thick padding or cushioning to absorb impact when compared also to other shoes such as typical table tennis/ping pong, futsal, squash and minimalist runner shoes.
Even the lightest shoes from the popular badminton shoes brand Yonex which is used by the top international professionals is advertised as 250 grams:
That is to say, typical badminton shoes are even heavier than this weight which itself can be quite heavier than some lighter shoes. So you should again consider the weight of your current shoes compared to badminton shoes if seeking lighter-weight shoes.
Badminton shoes should have better grip
Most badminton shoes have good grip which will prevent slips and give you good movement on the court. But it is also common to see players slipping on the badminton court even in high-end badminton shoes, especially when the court has sweat from the players on it. Examples exist of top international players slipping in official matches and requiring the court to be mopped before proceeding.
It is entirely possible that your current shoes have sufficient grip already, such that a new badminton shoe not a necessary upgrade.
Badminton shoes have more support for lateral and backwards movements
Good badminton shoes should have good support for moving in all directions since badminton involves frequent movement in all directions. Support for forwards movement is probably a given in all shoes since moving forwards a lot is what people usually use shoes to do.
Whether or not the badminton shoe has more support than your current shoes depends on what shoes you have and what badminton shoes they are being compared to. In particular, factors which contribute to support in multidirectional movement are the pattern on the outsole of the shoe (bottom of the shoe which is in contact with the ground), and how hard the upper of the shoe is.
So should you get badminton shoes?
The above has discussed the important areas you should consider when looking to use badminton shoes. Badminton shoes may be an upgrade and better for you depending on your current shoes and build. You may find new badminton shoes which hinder your gameplay instead of improving it.
For example, I have tried 2 different badminton shoes after always playing in my minimalist running shoes and was quite disappointed by how much worse they made my movement. The badminton shoes were too heavy and high off the ground even though the lightest ones of the 2 were 300 grams per shoe and 2.5 cm off the ground. The usual shoes I was wearing at the time were the Xero Shoes HFS which was only about 180 grams (almost twice as light as the lighter badminton shoe I tried) and 0.9cm high off the ground with extra insoles (almost 3 times lower to the ground than the lighter badminton shoe).
Both badminton shoes slowed down my movement so I was always getting to the shuttle too late to make a good shot and it always felt like there was no opportunity to do a jump. It didn’t feel like there was any better lateral support compared to my usual shoes either and the heels were too high compared to the front of the shoes which negatively affected my balance and caused my feet to tend towards heel-striking. The only benefit of the shoes I felt was the cushioning which absorb impact faster so transitioning into the next step after jumping was faster, but there was never a good chance to get into position for a jump anyways so the sacrifice of everything else was not worth it.
So if you find that badminton shoes are not an upgrade for you, what should you do? Possibly you could try other court shoes such as squash, futsal, table tennis shoes or other kinds of shoes which still give the benefits badminton shoes try to provide as discussed above (shock absorption, low-to-ground, lightweight, grip, multidirectional support). In the case of shock absorption, you could also train your legs to be very strong so that you don’t need the cushioning. If you do try on some badminton shoes and they do improve your game, that’s great!