The long road to peak performance, with Gronya Somerville

ARTICLE

1 April 2024

5 mins read

From adjusting short-term tactics to trusting in long-term growth, Australian badminton player and Olympian Gronya Somerville shares how she plans, trains, and steadies her mind to perform at the top of her sport.

When I started playing badminton, I looked at each tournament as a big moment to peak at my very best.

But as my career has grown, I’ve come to learn that my sport is a marathon, not a sprint.

To play my best badminton, I need to build a repertoire of skills[GMM1] , match experience, and knowledge that is constantly advancing. And this skillset only grows from trusting that my short-term efforts and achievements will help me get there. It’s the consistent little steps along the way that lead me to a higher level down the road.

Trust the long game – and the small somethings

After 12-plus years on the tour, I know that I can’t reach my peak performance overnight and it will change depending on who we’re playing, where we’re playing, and how we decide to train. But as long as I’m putting in effort every day, focusing on the smaller goals I’ve broken down in front of me, I can trust that my skills and knowledge of the sport will improve. Everything adds up over time.

In a sport with such a full tournament calendar, the key to performing well at the right moment is being strategic about which Badminton World Federation tournaments we play, where we fit our training blocks, and what results we want. In an Olympic year, for example, we have to be really smart about tournaments so that we’re as efficient as we can be. You don’t want to waste time playing matches or organising travel to tournaments that aren’t contributing to your overall goal and performance quality. With time and experience, I’ve gotten better at knowing what works, what doesn’t work, and how my partner and I can adapt to perform better as a team.

Like in many sports, success in badminton comes from accumulating hours and hours of training and match play. I remember a big turning point when I was younger, when you’re inclined to think it’s too early to train or you’d rather stay out with friends. I woke up one morning and thought, I’m so tired, I don’t want to go – I’m just going to say I’m sick. But something told me I needed to go, I needed to push myself. From that point onwards, unless I’m truly ill, I go to training and do something. If you’re not physically there or mentally there, there’s always something else you can work on. It’s about doing what you can with what you’ve got.

Being adaptable is a key tactic for top performance

There’s nothing more motivating than feeling like I’m constantly improving. I started playing badminton quite late, and I feel like I’ve always been trying to catch up to the players ahead of me. My goal in the sport is to find my full potential – and while I reach for that, I keep myself motivated by enjoying the moments when I unlock new skills, deliver a better performance against a strong pair, and have everything flow on court with my doubles partner.

But with such a busy calendar, integrating new skills isn’t really something you can do quickly before a match. Before a tournament we’ll have a couple of weeks of higher volume, more physical training, and as we get closer to the tournament we’ll reduce the duration and get more into the match play: playing more points as opposed to doing drills, and getting the body feeling good to reduce fatigue.

In those first couple of weeks, I might try out a specific skill I’m working on, but as the tournament approaches I might need to leave that skill where it is and focus on how my partner and I will fight together on the court. Because every tournament is different: the speed of the shuttle can be slow or fast, there can be aircon drift in the stadium, and your opponents have different styles. Figuring out the best way to beat our opponents can be the best use of our time ahead of a match. And whether we have a good match or a poor match, we can analyse what we did well or poorly and adapt our play next time.

Performing at our peak all comes back to our tactics, mindset, and communication as a pair. I still need to trust that achieving my big goal will come from a long-term, cumulative effort of improvement.

Setbacks are a step forwards

Setbacks, fitness ruts, and failures are part of the challenge of sport.

They can be hard, but they’re also something to enjoy. They’re something you can reframe positively to help yourself stay in it and push forwards. If my partner and I make lots of errors in a match, we think about it as something to work on so that the next time we play that pair, we can appreciate the improvement. We might still lose, but we’ve gotten better and come closer.

When you do overcome struggles, the result feels that much better because you remember where you started and how you worked to get there.

For me, the people that support me no matter what, regardless of my badminton success or failure, also keep me grounded. They know how far I’ve come and the hopes I have, but they’re also a good escape from badminton when I need to party or blob at home. When we are travelling around different countries for seven, eight weeks at a time, this strong support system helps me feel connected, deal with whatever’s on my mind, and stay on track.

Set goals by zooming out to narrow in

When you’re going after a goal, it’s important to figure out why you want it in your life long-term.

Do you want to do the swimathon because you want to live a long, healthy life? Are you asking for a promotion because it will give you the experience you need to launch your own company?

I find this avoids narrowing in on one small goal and forgetting how it fits into the bigger picture of your life – and what day-to-day steps that you need to do to get there. You might think: I’m just going to swim as hard as I can every day until the swimathon. But what happens if you get injured? What happens when you finish the swim and have nothing to motivate you to train? If you know your bigger goal, and its meaning to your life, you might keep training to enter next year’s event, or try your hand at a different sport.

I’ve always enjoyed goal setting and being analytical. For me, understanding where I need to be at different points to reach the top of my sport – and then breaking down all the steps to get there – helps me trust that all the small peaks and cumulative improvements along the way are incredibly worthwhile.

Staff Writer

Staff writers come from a range of backgrounds including health, wellbeing, music, tech, culture and the arts. They spend their time researching the latest data and trends in the health market to deliver up-to-date information, helping everyday Australians live healthier lives. This is general information only and is not intended as medical, health, nutritional or other advice. You should obtain professional advice from a medical or health practitioner in relation to your own personal circumstances. The information in this article is general information only and is not intended as medical, health, nutritional or other advice. You should obtain professional advice from a medical or health practitioner in relation to your own personal circumstances.

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