St. Paul's Secondary School, Oughterard

Badminton

At St. Paul’s we offer our students a wide variety of different sports and Badminton is an excellent sport that your son or daughter can take part in.

Our school is very lucky to have four full sized badminton courts in the Community Centre in Oughterard where once a week the students are offered training sessions after school as an extra-curricular activity.

The basics of Badminton are not difficult to master; even new players with little or no skill can enjoy their first game and progress quickly.

Badminton is a social sport and offers a great way to make new friends. The students who choose to play badminton will also have the opportunity to learn and develop new key skills.

Playing badminton can have a number of positive health and fitness benefits for your son/daughter, for example:

• Improves aerobic fitness, with more oxygen circulated around the body to increase muscular endurance.
• Burns off calories with energy being supplied to the muscles and not forming fat.
• Boosting flexibility and sprint speed, due to the fast-paced nature of badminton.
• Improves hand-eye co-ordination with concentration required for serving.
• Develops the strength and power of muscles, notably leg and arm muscles.
• Furthers concentration and mental strength.
• Boosts a player’s cardiovascular fitness, allowing more oxygen to be pumped around the body and help provide energy to muscles.

 

Overall, badminton is a great sport for fitness and is excellent for people of all ages as well as providing a great choice for those wanting to give a new racket sport a go.

Interesting Fact!!

Badminton is officially the fastest of all racket sports. Players can hit the shuttlecock at speeds of up to 180mph (288kph) toward their opponent. But it is not just all about speed, a player can expect to run up to four miles (6.4km) around the court during a match whilst having the agility to maintain energy-busting rallies!