Abstract
Background Badminton is one of the most popular racket sports all over the world that requires powerful shorts, balance and agility performance, with core stability being the basic foundation on which optimum performance is built.
Aims This current study aimed to find out the correlation of core stability with badminton related performance determinants.
Method Thirty-six male professional badminton players aged 21.19 +/- 1.95 years, height 171.75 +/- 6.50 cm, weight 68.69 +/- 9.00 kg, BMI 23.28 +/- 2.76 kg/m(2) with > 3 years of experience and no history of any injury were recruited for this study. Core stability was measured using stabilizer pressure biofeedback. Balance, agility and upper limb power were measured using Y balance test, agility T test and medicine ball throw, respectively. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to find out the correlation between the variables.
Result The mean time for agility was 11.23 +/- 1.368 s, mean reach distance of right and left leg were 97.511 +8.287 cm and 97.806 +/- 9.124 cm, respectively, and the mean distance of medicine ball throw was 4.285 +/-.488 m. The results showed significant positive correlations between core stability and dynamic balance (right r = 0.460 and left r = 0.460). Agility performance showed significant negative correlation (-0.579) with core stability. A fair positive correlation also found between core stability and upper limb power (0.269) with P value > 0.05.
Conclusion Core stability is significantly correlated with balance and agility performance and a non-significant fair positive correlation also exists with core stability and upper limb power which is essential for badminton performance.