The effect of playing ‘Donat Playon’ on physical fitness and agility of the students of Sadewo Junior Badminton School, Purworejo, Central Java

Badminton requires high levels of physical fitness and agility because players must perform rapid movements, acceleration, deceleration, and directional changes during match situations. However, conventional physical training approaches may provide limited engagement for junior athletes. Therefore, the development of game-based training models that integrate physical demands and enjoyable activities is needed. This study introduces Donat Playon as an innovative game-based training model designed to integrate agility, acceleration, and repeated directional movement demands in junior badminton training. This study aimed to examine the effect of Donat Playon game-based training on physical fitness and agility performance among junior badminton players. The study employed a quasi-experimental method with a one-group pretest-posttest design. The participants were 28 junior badminton players from Sadewo Junior Badminton School, Purworejo, Central Java, selected using purposive sampling. The intervention was conducted for three months consisting of 14 training sessions. Physical fitness was assessed using the multistage fitness test, while agility was measured using the shuttle run test. Data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon test with a significance level of 5%. The results showed significant improvements in both physical fitness and agility after participating in the Donat Playon training program. Physical fitness increased from a mean score of 31.65 ± 8.24 in the pretest to 34.64 ± 9.44 in the posttest, representing an improvement of 9.44% with a significance value of p = 0.000. Agility performance increased from 25.71 ± 6.48 to 27.68 ± 6.77, representing an improvement of 7.66% with a significance value of p = 0.002. These findings indicate that Donat Playon provides effective movement stimuli through repeated running activities, rapid directional changes, and reactive movement patterns that are relevant to badminton-specific physical demands. In conclusion, the Donat Playon game-based training model can improve physical fitness and agility performance among junior badminton players. These findings suggest that Donat Playon can be considered an alternative badminton-specific conditioning approach that combines physical development with enjoyable training characteristics.