Comparing Core Strengthening Techniques in Badminton: A Critical Narrative Review of Mechanisms, Evidence Quality and Transfer to On-Court Performance

Abstract

Core strengthening occupies a settled place in badminton conditioning practice, yet the training methods gathered under that label differ widely in external loading, surface stability, movement velocity and coordinative complexity. Whether those differences matter for badminton performance remains unresolved, and prescription is frequently justified by appeal to the construct rather than by comparative evidence. This critical narrative review evaluates the strength, consistency and methodological adequacy of the literature bearing on that question, and asks whether the available data support differentiating among core strengthening techniques for badminton players. Peer-reviewed evidence was identified through open scholarly indexes and metadata registries, supplemented by backward and forward citation searching, institutional and journal sources, and checks for corrections and retractions, with the final search conducted on 25 May 2026. Three findings dominate the synthesis. First, general syntheses of trunk and core training in trained athletes report reliable gains in trunk endurance and balance but small, inconsistent transfer to sport-specific outcomes, whereas badminton-specific and racket-sport-specific syntheses report substantially larger effects; the divergence is attributable in large part to differences in control-group design, outcome selection and study quality rather than to genuine sport specificity. Second, direct comparisons among modality families are scarce, and where they exist the contrasts typically confound modality with external load, session duration or coaching attention, so that claims of superiority for unstable-surface, Pilates-based or integrated approaches are not supported by adequately controlled data. Third, the badminton evidence base is small, dominated by short interventions in youth and collegiate players, weakly powered, and marked by at least one retraction, which constrains confidence in pooled estimates. Core strengthening can be recommended as an adjunct that improves trunk endurance, dynamic balance and, in less-trained players, change-of-direction performance, but assertions that any particular technique is superior for badminton exceed the evidence. Priorities include adequately powered comparative trials with load-matched control conditions and badminton-valid outcomes.