ABSTRACT
During recent years much attention has been paid to the interface between sports shoes and surfaces. The majority of research conducted has been connected with running, and the little related to racket sports has been associated with tennis shoes (e.g. Stackoff and Kaelin, 1989). Badminton involves a variety of fast, lunging movements, creating high stresses and demands on the footwear of players. While it is evident that high forces will act on the shoe to distort, deform and destroy it, these forces have not been quantified. A quantification of such forces would be of value to both the player and the shoe manufacturer. The aims of this study were i) to analyse the movements in badminton using notational analysis techniques and ii) to quantify the shear (or horizontal friction) forces acting on the shoe using force platform methods. A combination of these methods allows an estimate to be made of the stresses and demands on the footwear of a player.
