Why Do Badminton Players Retire Young? 5 Primary Reasons

It is not surprising that badminton players retire young, like most other competitive sports. In this article, we discuss the events, causes and implications of their decision of retirement.

Let us take a brief overview of an athletes life.

Badminton requirements

Like other athletic sports, badminton requires a high level of fitness across multiple domains—physical prowess, stamina, agility, flexibility and sharp reflexes. Muscles, joints and other visceral units bear high degrees of stress.

Rightfully so, it gets harder and harder to keep up with this high merit as body starts to age.

Typical career path

A typical badminton career for an athlete starts quite early, mostly in preadolescence. This occurs formally—in schools and gymnasiums, as well as informally.

This is followed by rigorous athletic training and skill development occurs in pre-teens and teens.

Often, athletes see peaks in the twenties, with the career mostly ending in their thirties.

This typical career path is related to the bodily changes that occur with age. Some of the factors that play significant role in this decision of retirement are explained ahead.

Reasons to retire young

1. Physical demand

Joints:

Of all the injuries related to badminton, Joints and Ligaments are most commonly involved, comprising more than half of the injuries counted collectively.

It is due to the fact that these are the sites of basic articulation between limbs that are the prime movers. Also, joints and ligaments of lower limb are relatively even more common. This study summarises this point.

Muscles:

Muscles are the contents that initiate and sustain movements.

It is due to the fact that they have abundant nervous supply and blood perfusion. With age, muscles become prone to exhaustion. It is noteworthy, however, that they don’t lose fibres due to physical stress.

Age realted dystrophy of skeletal muscles is also worth discussing. Performance in elite athletes in all sports is surprisingly remarkable even after the onset of age-related mascular dystrophy.

Still, physical activity is effected as body ages even before fibres start to degenerate.

Stamina:

It is very obvious that the body stamina tends to decline with increasing age. This also has adverse effects on athletic performances.

Badminton, being a highly athletic sport, is seriously affected by stamina-related changes. This may show up as cardiovascular stress related disorders that may show up when body is pushed through its limit.

Agility & strength:

Agility and reflexive response is required to return the shuttlecock into the opponent’s court instantly, as well as, to decide how should be a shot handled.

Strength is required for potent responses. Smashing the shuttle is a good example which requires ample arm and shoulder strength.

Both of these parameters tend to decline with age due to the decrease of sensory abilities and nervous reflexes.

2. Diseases

Cardiovascular Diseases:

Athletes in general are prone to cardiovascular disorders as they are continually putting their bodies through extreme situations of stress.

This high aerobic demand on the behalf of peripheral and nervous tissues puts increased pressure on lungs and hearts, which may collapse occasionally.

In its extreme manifestations, this is often seen in forms of sudden deaths during play.

These are also prevalent due to genetic factors.

Screening athletes for cardiovascular pathological dispositions is an increasingly popular practice aimed at finding the genetic factors susceptible to induce disorder.

3. Emotional demand

Grit:

Athletics is field that demands exceptional emotional strength in addition to physical prowess.

Top tier athletes are invariably highly conscientious people. These high levels of conscientiousness, the ability to get things done, to train harder and to put the body through increasing stress are directly related to the levels of grit they manifest, according to various studies, and obviously so.

This very thing makes these players able to compete all the way in world-level tournaments and compete with fellow athletes unbeatable themselves in their own rights. This is especially true in the world of badminton where we have various examples.

A brilliant example is the famous rivalry between Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan, where despite being 1st rank for a humungous 349 weeks, having a world record for reaching in semi-finals most number of times, being the most successful olympian from Malaysia, Lee Chong Wei repeatedly loses to Lin Dan.

Still, grit made him not give up, face his opponent and even befriending him.

Family:

Generally, athletes have career paths styled in a way that they are intensely busy with their preoccupations in the early part of their lives. Simultaneously other aspects of their lives are affected; family being the most important one.

Working to build up relationships and having ample time to spend with their loved ones is also a big motivation behind their decision of retirement.

A lot of athletes take time off from sports to witness the golden moments in lives of their relatives—to marry, to witness their children’s birth, to be with them or their parents when need arises, etc.

4. Others in the hierarchy

It is a true fact of life that one can never be the number one forever. Even the distinguished ones among the elite athletes, who hold countless world level records and have unbeatable track records are doomed to be referred to as a past. Everybody gets old.

It is, nonetheless, hard to accept this fact, which could be undoubtedly one of the reasons athlete choose to retire early.

Other side:

. Post retirement depression:

With a distinguished rank in the world of badminton, and sports generally, comes distinguished popularity. Retirement and withdrawal from this thrilling world of sports, and adopting a passive dormant lifestyle brings its own stresses.

Actually, this has been very well-documented in social psychology that athletes, especially elite athletes, may experience significant levels of depression and anxiety due to withdrawal from sports.

There might not be involved any financial factors, in fact most athletes are well compensated by their governments or sports agencies and have respectable amounts of personal funds collected from their careers.

It is noteworthy though that this may not always be the case. Some retirees experience better lifestyle status after they have taken time off their sports.

This study well demonstrates “Factors such as gender, race, age, socioeconomic status, and social and emotional support networks shape the manner in which one makes the transition out of sport”. Hence, it is not surprising that some even call it “rebirth”.

They spend time on their newly-discovered hobbies or old ones and find new interests. Some even decide to continue their education and go to college or university.

Hence, it would not be right to regard athletes’ retirement anxiety to their decision of retirement. This study also supports this proposition.

5. Financial aspect

Financial aspect of this post-retirement life for athletes is a bit different than rest of the professions. Mostly, and generally, athletes are well-compensated for their talents; by public, by governments and other non-governmental organisations.

These rewards may be in form of retirement funds, governmental stipends or sponsorships.

For athletes that represent the elite class of the sport, there comes along a celebrity part of their lives, which may be significantly monetised— for instance, in the form of event attending, advertisement actings and other live performances.

For others, the case could be different i.e they have to be self-dependent when it comes to finances.

Mostly fitness athletes take relevant jobs like fitness trainers, physical activity incharges etc. Retired athletes may also adopt other “allied” sport jobs like commentators, sport analysts or umpires.

For retired badminton players, it is a norm to coach young learners. This is especially true for countries where badminton is gaining popularity as an athletic sport.

Some may also adopt other career domains altogether, leaving their own sport forever professionally. These could be anything academic, skill-based or related to their broad-base school level study.

The Increasing Mean Retirement Age 

A note-worthy interesting trend has been seen developing that the mean age for retirement for elite athletes is significantly increasing over the past years. This study demonstrates this news breakthrough well. 

This could shift a trend in the world of professional sports as the careers are increasingly inclining towards holicism, along with competitiveness.

Conclusion:

Retirement is a tough decision for professionals, it is even tougher for athletes—who have a deep passion for the sport they play.

However, physical and psychological factors describe above influence the early retirement of athletes and badminton players.