New badminton study: adding EMS to strength work lifted jump-smash height

A jump smash wins points in a flash.
It also asks the legs for a sudden burst of power.
A 2025 sports-science paper asked a simple training question.
Does EMS on top of strength training help that jump?

The short answer from the data is yes, for two key tests.
EMS plus squats beat both rest-day scores and squats alone.

Where this evidence comes from

This is not a locker-room rumour.
It is a peer-reviewed paper in the journal Sensors.
The article is Lin, Hu and Sheng, 2025, volume 25, article 577.
The DOI is 10.3390/s25020577.
PubMed lists it as PMID 39860947.

The work was done at Shanghai University of Sport.
That is a specialist sports university in China.
The ethics committee approved the protocol.
The team followed the Declaration of Helsinki.
Players gave informed consent.

Sensors is published by MDPI in Basel, Switzerland.
Switzerland has a long record in measurement science.
The paper is indexed in PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science.

So this post rests on a published experiment.
It is not a product pitch.
It is a plain reading of what the lab measured.

Who they tested

Twenty-five male badminton players took part.
Each had at least three years of professional training.
None had a history of lower-limb injury.
Mean height was 186.8 cm.
Mean weight was 76.3 kg.

Every player completed three conditions.
First came a baseline test with no extra session.
Next came strength training only.
Then came the same lifts with EMS on the quadriceps.

That design lets each athlete act as his own comparison.

What the training looked like

Players warmed up for ten minutes.
They jogged, then stretched the legs.

The strength session used barbell squats.
The load was 65 percent of one-rep max.
They did four sets of 20 reps.
Rest between sets was 30 seconds.

In the combined session, EMS ran during those squats.
The device was a Compex SP 8.0 unit used in the lab.
Pulses were biphasic square waves at 100 Hz.
Pulse width was 300 microseconds.
Current was set per player, usually 25 to 35 mA.
The aim was at least 60 percent of a max voluntary contraction.

EMS fired during the lowering, stretch and lifting phases.
A lighter 3 Hz mode ran in the standing rest phase.
Electrodes sat on both quadriceps.

That is one protocol.
It is not a claim that more current is always safer.

How they measured the jump

The jump smash used a Qualisys motion-capture rig.
Eight infrared cameras filmed at 250 Hz.
Thirty-nine markers mapped the body.
Jump height came from take-off speed of the centre of mass.

Static squat jumps used a Perform Better jump tester.
So did the eccentric-concentric squat jump.

Muscle signals came from Noraxon surface EMG.
Sensors sat on vastus lateralis, rectus femoris, vastus medialis and biceps femoris.
The team tracked mean EMG, RMS amplitude and integrated EMG.
Scores were normalised to each player’s own peak.

The numbers that moved

Jump smash height rose across conditions.
Baseline: 51.34 ± 3.45.
Strength only: 52.25 ± 2.69.
EMS plus strength: 53.22 ± 3.76.

That overall test was significant.
F = 3.39, p = 0.042.

Static squat jump rose as well.
Baseline: 53.76 ± 4.19.
Strength only: 55.57 ± 3.25.
EMS plus strength: 56.32 ± 2.98.

F = 3.67, p = 0.033.

In both tests, the combined session beat baseline.
It also beat strength work on its own.

That is the bright, simple finding.
Adding EMS to the squat session went with a higher jump score than squats alone.

What the muscles showed

The clearest muscle activation change sat in the rectus femoris.
That muscle helps drive knee extension in a jump.

During the static squat jump, mean EMG for rectus femoris was:
Baseline 0.42 ± 0.48.
Strength only 0.46 ± 0.38.
EMS plus strength 0.63 ± 0.26.

F = 3.44, p = 0.040.

RMS amplitude for the same muscle was:
Baseline 0.54 ± 0.36.
Strength only 0.56 ± 0.35.
EMS plus strength 0.74 ± 0.27.

F = 3.66, p = 0.033.

So the extra stimulus lined up with stronger rectus femoris signals.
The authors link that to better recruitment of fast-twitch fibres.

Vastus lateralis, vastus medialis and biceps femoris did not show the same clear jump.
The gain was not “every muscle, every test.”

One test did not improve

The eccentric-concentric squat jump did not change in a meaningful way.
Baseline 127.66 ± 1.23.
Strength only 129.38 ± 2.31.
EMS plus strength 125.25 ± 1.54.

F = 0.59, p = 0.561.

The paper says this drill mixes lengthening and shortening work.
EMS in this setup appeared more helpful for concentric, explosive jumps.
That is useful honesty.
It keeps the story tied to the actual tables.

Why badminton coaches care

A jump smash is a high-value attack.
Players leave the floor, then hit down from height.
More height can mean a steeper angle.
It can also mean more time to organise the swing.

This study measured that sport-specific jump.
It also measured a simple squat jump.
Both rose after EMS plus strength training.

The authors call the mix a promising training tool.
They point to explosiveness, not to medical treatment.

What this post is — and is not

This post reports a published sports study.
It does not sell a device.
It does not say EMS treats injury, disease or pain.
It does not say every player will jump higher.
It does not say unlimited sessions are better.

The trial looked at one session block in trained men.
The height gains were modest in centimetres.
They were still statistically significant for two jumps.

If you play badminton and already squat, the paper’s message is practical.
In this lab, pairing EMS with those squats produced a better jump smash score than squats alone.
The rectus femoris also fired more during the static jump.

That is the evidence.
Read the full paper for methods, limits and the original tables.

This article summarises an open-access sports-science paper. It is not medical advice and is not an advertisement for a therapeutic good.