Health benefits of badminton: body and mind

The health benefits of badminton are real, but most of the headlines you see are stronger than the evidence behind them. Here is what the research actually shows: racket-sport players live longer on average, an hour of hard match play burns around 600 kcal for a 70 kg player, the jumps and lunges load your bones, and a few short studies suggest the game sharpens your thinking for a while afterwards. Most of this comes from studies that show links, not proof. That is still a very good reason to play.

If you are just starting, our New to badminton page has the short version, plus kit, rules and how to find a club.

Heart, lungs and a longer life

The most quoted figure comes from a study of 80,306 British adults followed for about nine years, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2017. People who played racket sports (badminton, tennis and squash were grouped together) had a 47% lower risk of dying from any cause during the study, and a 56% lower risk of dying from heart disease or stroke, than people who did not, after adjusting for a range of other factors.

A Danish study pointed the same way. The Copenhagen City Heart Study followed 8,577 adults for up to 25 years and compared the life expectancy of people who played different sports with that of sedentary people. Tennis came out top at 9.7 extra years, and badminton second at 6.2 years, ahead of football, cycling, swimming and jogging.

Before you book a court on the strength of those numbers, read the small print. Both studies are observational: they compare people who chose to play racket sports with people who did not, and those groups differ in ways no adjustment fully captures, such as income, health at the start and how much free time they have. The Danish authors said so themselves, and suggested that the social side of playing with a partner might explain part of the gap. The honest summary is that badminton players tend to live longer, and the sport probably deserves some of the credit.

A 2022 systematic review of 27 studies on badminton and health reached a cautious but positive conclusion: playing may improve health across physical, mental and social areas, with the most evidence for physical measures such as heart and lung function.

How many calories does badminton burn?

Exercise scientists measure effort in METs, short for metabolic equivalents. One MET is the energy you use sitting quietly, defined as about 1 kcal per kilogram of body weight per hour. The Compendium of Physical Activities, the standard reference used by researchers, gives badminton three ratings:

To estimate calories, multiply the MET value by your weight in kilograms and by the hours played. For a 70 kg player that gives:

Treat these as rough guides, not readings. They include the energy you would burn sitting still anyway, and they assume continuous play. A two-hour club night with waits between games, a chat at the bench and a long warm-up might give you an hour of actual rallies. Fitness, age and how hard you chase each shuttle all move the numbers too.

The more useful comparison is with the World Health Organization’s advice for adults: at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity, or a mix. Two club nights of honest effort cover a large part of that.

Bones and muscles

Bones get stronger when they are loaded, especially by impacts and sudden changes of direction. Badminton is full of both: lunges to the net, jumps for smashes, push-offs from the back corners.

A Swedish study published in 1998 measured bone mineral density in 12 adolescent badminton players, 28 ice hockey players and 24 boys who did no regular sport. The badminton players had higher bone density than the non-sporting group at all the weight-bearing sites measured, and higher density than the ice hockey players at the hip and the lower end of the thigh bone once body weight was taken into account, even though they trained fewer hours a week. The authors suggested that jumping and landing in unusual directions might be a particularly strong stimulus for bone. A three-year follow-up of a similar group by the same research team found the athletes kept gaining bone at the hip faster than the controls, though that paper grouped badminton and ice hockey players together.

These are small studies of teenage boys, so do not stretch them too far. But both point the same way: the jumping and lunging in badminton look good for growing bones.

For muscles, badminton works the legs and the hitting shoulder hard and leaves plenty out. WHO recommends muscle-strengthening exercise for all major muscle groups on two or more days a week, and badminton alone does not do that job. A couple of short strength sessions a week also protect you from the injuries the sport is known for, which we come back to below.

Coordination and reaction speed

A shuttle on a full smash leaves the racket faster than anything else in racket sport, so reading and reacting is a big part of the game. Researchers in Germany tested 19 high-level badminton players in 2021 and found they reacted faster to the sound of a shot than to the sight of it, and fastest of all when they had both. Their reactions to recorded smashes were quicker than to drop shots. It is a neat demonstration of something good players know without being told: you hear the smash as much as you see it.

Does playing badminton make you react faster in general? The same research group’s earlier tests found badminton players quicker on a simple visual reaction task than non-athletes. That comparison was between different groups tested at different times, with an age gap between them, so it cannot tell you whether badminton built the faster reactions or whether quick people gravitate to the sport. Probably a bit of both.

What is easier to say is that the skills improve with practice. Footwork, the split step and watching the opponent’s body before contact are all learnable, which is why beginners feel the game slow down after a few months. Our footwork basics guide covers the movements.

Thinking skills: what the brain studies say

Badminton is an “open-skill” sport: every shot is a decision made under time pressure, unlike running or cycling where the movement repeats. Researchers have asked whether that thinking load brings extra benefits for the brain.

One small Japanese study, published in PLOS ONE in 2019, compared the same 20 students after ten minutes of badminton, ten minutes of running at a similar intensity and ten minutes of sitting still, testing them each time on a Stroop task, a standard test of the ability to ignore distractions and hold back an automatic response. Performance improved after badminton compared with rest. Running did not produce a clear improvement. The authors suggested the decision-making in badminton might be part of the reason.

That is an interesting result, but a narrow one: 20 people, a single short session and a short-term effect measured in a lab. It does not show that badminton protects your memory in old age or makes you better at your job. Studies linking physical activity in general to cognitive health are more numerous, and WHO lists better cognitive health among the benefits of regular activity, but badminton-specific evidence is still thin.

Mood, stress and the social game

Badminton is almost always played with other people, and that may be one of its biggest advantages. A systematic review of sport and adult wellbeing, published in 2013, found that taking part in sport was linked to better wellbeing, less stress and better social functioning, and that club-based sport showed stronger links than exercising alone. Most of the studies were cross-sectional, so again these are associations.

WHO also lists improved mental health and better sleep among the benefits of regular physical activity. Put those together with a club night’s rotating partners, the chat between games and the small satisfaction of a rally you actually won, and it is not hard to see why people keep coming back. The Copenhagen researchers made the same point: the sports linked to the longest lives were the ones you play with someone else.

A game for life

Badminton scales to the player. You can play a gentle rally with a child, a hard singles match at 30 and slower, cleverer doubles at 70. Doubles halves the court each player covers, and the shuttle’s quick deceleration rewards timing and placement over raw power, so experience can make up for lost speed. Para badminton, played seated in wheelchairs and standing, has been on the Paralympic programme since the Tokyo 2020 Games.

For older adults, WHO adds a specific recommendation: activities that challenge balance and help prevent falls on three or more days a week for people with poor mobility. Footwork drills and doubles play involve a lot of controlled weight shifts, though no study we found has tested badminton as a falls-prevention programme. Treat it as a fun way to stay active, not a treatment.

How strong is the evidence?

Worth saying plainly, because health articles rarely do:

• Longevity and heart health: large, long studies, but observational. Strong link, cause not proven.
• Calories and intensity: solid. MET values come from measured energy costs.
• Bones: small studies in teenagers, consistent with wider bone research.
• Reaction and thinking: small lab studies, short-term effects.
• Mood and social benefits: consistent findings, mostly cross-sectional.

None of that is a reason not to play. It is a reason to be suspicious of anyone who tells you badminton will add exactly six years to your life.

Play safely

The benefits only count if you stay on court. Badminton asks a lot of ankles, knees, the Achilles tendon and the hitting shoulder, and most injuries in studied players are to the legs, with overuse problems more common than sudden ones. Two habits make the biggest difference.

Warm up properly. Ten minutes that raise your pulse and move every joint, then build from gentle shots to full pace. Save smashes for the end of the warm-up. Stretching on its own has not been shown to prevent injuries; a warm-up that keeps you moving is the better use of the time.

Get stronger off the court. In a large analysis of injury-prevention trials across sports, strength training cut injuries to less than a third. Squats, calf raises, planks and light band work for the shoulder, twice a week, are enough to start.

Our Look after your body section has a full 10-minute warm-up, the six most common badminton injuries and how to avoid them, and a beginner’s training week.

What to do next

Book two sessions a week for a month, keep a note of how you feel on the mornings after, and add two short strength workouts. That is enough to find out whether the research applies to you.

Sources

1. Oja P. et al. (2017). Associations of specific types of sports and exercise with all-cause and cardiovascular-disease mortality: a cohort study of 80 306 British adults. British Journal of Sports Medicine 51(10), 812–817
2. University of Oxford, Nuffield Department of Population Health: Swimming, racquet sports and aerobics linked to best odds of staving off death
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4. AARP: Tennis, badminton linked to longer life (report on the Copenhagen City Heart Study, 2018)
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6. Compendium of Physical Activities: Sports (badminton codes 15020, 15025, 15030)
7. Compendium of Physical Activities: home page, MET definition
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17. International Paralympic Committee: Badminton set to make Paralympic Games bow at Tokyo 2020
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20. Mayo Clinic: How to warm up
21. Guinness World Records: Fastest badminton hit (male)