Exploring the interplay: Hand muscular power, hip flexibility, and lob shot proficiency in badminton

The ability to make lob shots in badminton is a crucial ability to be mastered by badminton players. The players always use this punch during badminton matches. Players who are not able to make this shot well and consistently will have difficulty serving the punch given by the opponent. The physical component that supports lob ability is still very minimal in language by researchers, so it needs to be studied in order to provide new knowledge for badminton coaches. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between hand muscle explosive power and hip flexibility with lob-hitting ability in badminton. A total of 54 samples participated in this correlational study consisting of 33 men (average age 19.10±0.30 years) and 21 women (average age 18.18±0.39 years). The process of collecting lob ability data was carried out by conducting a lob ability test on all research samples. Arm muscle explosive power data was obtained by performing two hand medicine ball puts, and hip flex data was obtained by conducting sit and reach tests. After the data of all these research variables were obtained, the data were obtained using descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing was carried out by conducting a product-moment correlation test. Before testing the hypothesis, the data normality test was used to meet the classical assumptions of the correlation test. The results of this study showed that there was a correlation between the explosive power of the arm muscles and the ability to hit lob (r = 0.62, p = 0.05), hip flexibility also correlated with the ability to punch lob (r = 0.60, p = 0.05), besides that the explosive power of the arm muscles and hip flexibility together had a relationship with the ability to hit lob in badminton (R = 0.71, p = 0.05). The ability to perform lob strokes correlated with both physical elements, namely arm muscle explosive power and waist flexibility, so badminton coaches can optimize both physical components if they want to improve their athletes' lob-hitting abilities.