Winning and Training
Winning is the same as letting your opponent
lose
Fight the good fight and stay focused on just playing squash. The longer a game goes, the chances of either player getting frustrated, tired, or starting to feel hopeless, increases exponentially. As the body tires and the focus on playing squash diminishes, players at all levels may let up and the match soon ends in their opponent's favor. They run out of options, and they crumple mentally.
Fight the good fight and stay focused on just playing squash. The longer a game goes, the chances of either player getting frustrated, tired, or starting to feel hopeless, increases exponentially. As the body tires and the focus on playing squash diminishes, players at all levels may let up and the match soon ends in their opponent's favor. They run out of options, and they crumple mentally.
People get tired, especially if you have been running them along
the diagonals of the court. This leads to looser shots aka
opportunities for you to be more aggressive. Trust in your
gameplan, it's about to work. A confident game plan, allows you
to focus on just hitting the ball, the execution, so stick with
it and remove the indecision. Only when you are certain, should
you change a losing game plan and when you do, change it up
dramatically.
Give your opponent lots of opportunities to give up or get
distracted. It's amazing how a lapse in focus can lead to a
momentum swing in a squash match. It's very common for players
who just won one game to let up significantly at the start of the
next. By extending points, slowing the pace or taking time
between points, you allow your opponent to think about how nice
winning will be instead of focusing on the match itself. If your
down, allow the tide to turn by retaining your focus on playing
squash. Think squash thoughts, not thoughts about the score, or
whether you're embarrassed, or how your team-mates are doing.
Keep your focus.
Learn to spot weaknesses and how to exploit them. Really look at
how unbalanced your opponent's shots are, or if they are weaker
on one side, it they are slow moving to the front of the court,
if they don't like receiving a hard serve, or a very soft lob
serve. Vary up your shots until you find a weakness to exploit, a
good time to do this is warmup. Conversely, don't let them hit
the shots they like to hit. Minimize opportunities for them to
capitalize on their strengths, and allow them to hit lots of
their worst strokes.
Concentrate on hitting better shots as they may start to work
better. Sometimes you are just off, shots clip the the top of the
tin, boasts sit up too high, or you're length comes off the back
wall. Focusing on improving your shots will help shift the
momentum and you may find the proper length and control on your
shots before the match ends.
Draw out long points and your opponent may go brain-dead and
start hitting stupid shots. An exhuasted opponent will start
hitting without thinking. When your opponent is too exhausted to
think, you're in a good competitive position.
Changing ball condidtions may work in your favour. Long, hard
rallies heats up the ball making it hard to hit controlled drop
shots. If your opponent has been hurting you with drop shots
while the ball is still cold, take a step upcourt. If the ball
starts to get hot, be confident that the hot ball drop shot will
be easier to get than the cold ball drop shot was.
Look to get a second wind and be fitter in a long match. Fitness
is key in squash. Condition yourself in the weeks and months
before your big matches, then rest right before your match. Give
yourself a full tank to help you win the endurance contest in a
five-game match. (Create the opportunities to catch your breath
by hitting high slow lobs. Conversely, take away your opponent's
time by volleying whenever possible.
Start to analyze your opponents mental state, they might be about
to give up, or be mentally fragile. There's no way of knowing
exactly what's going on inside your opponent's head. Trust your
gut, if you sense their frustration, or exasperation, continue to
apply pressure, keep getting to every ball, and work as hard as
possible on every shot on every point, you never know when they
are going to crack, it might happen at any time.
If you've got a full tank, use it...why leave any energy unspent?
There is no point in saving yourself for another match,
especially if lose. Short of injuring yourself, you should try as
hard as possible to get every ball and win every point. Put out
your very best effort every time you play a match, and remember
that the match isn't over until someone wins the very last
point.
Get physical. Intensity must be the driving factor of your workouts. Push yourself to see improvements in speed, strength and endurance with every workout. In order to run faster for longer, you must practice running faster for longer. Sounds easy!? This is the only way to raise your lactic threshold so that intense efforts can be maintained with a minimal fatigue. Try training continuously at above 85% max heart rate for 20- to 25-minutes, short intense workouts have a profound effect on lactic threshold.
Keep going. Maximise aerobic capacity (V02max) so that more energy is available to sustain your exercise. This is as simple as playing squash for extended periods of time. Don't just go thru the motions, push yourself to the point of exhaustion and once that point is reached, keep going, thats when the intensity of training becomes the key factor to maximizing V02max. If you want to improve your V02max, you need 85 per cent of maximal heart rate throughout the entire game for four-to-five minute stretches several times, which means pushing hard to every ball, on every point from start to finish of every game. Learn to empty the tank!
Use your head. Superior performers can concentrate entirely on their body during training and match play without interruption from extraneous thoughts or negative information which attenuates performance. Top athletes are self-critical, engaging in positive self-talk and encouragement during training and in their lives in general. Bad performances roll off their backs and they regard poor outings as opportunities to learn more about themselves and to develop both physical and mental preparations for competitions. Visualization is key, forming mental images of moving powerfully and quickly, and tuning into these images before major competitions.
Make it easy. Efficiency in exact squash movements prevents wasting precious energy during competition, making hard exertions less stressful. Each muscle in your body is composed of collections of individual muscle cells. Strengthen your muscles so the muscle required can easily sustain a certain level of effort. Simple put, make the muscles you use strong muscles. Activating fewer individual muscle cells lowers your overall energy demand and increases efficiency. Then you can step up to higher intensity squash or conserve large quantities of precious muscle fuel. Training at levels of effort higher than your usual competitive intensity allows you to keep going at the lower intensity of match play. Obviously training at such exertions can't be sustained for long, so employ 30 to 90 second intervals at close to top capacity. During competition, realize that it is not just a muscular event, an athlete's nervous system must learn to control muscular activity at the precise exertion level required to play squash. Specific training allows the nervous and muscular systems to come together in a coordinated way.
Stop. Learn to balance intense training with recovery, so that you can do it all over again. Severely intense workouts are necessary to get to the top and rest is equally important and often missing from a potentially great athlete's schedule. Highly intense workouts produce winning performances but the majority of athletes go overboard, pushing themselves to the brink of fatigue, overtraining and even injury. Learn that optimal training involves exercising and resting; to reach supreme performance levels that include fierce exertions, you must balance them with restoration and recovery. Our bodies need to take a rest, so that we can train hard. So avoid the temptation to carry out too many high-intensity workouts during the training year and learn how to identify overtraining syndrome.
Visit my blog Eau C Squash
Training for Squash versus Training to
win
If you want peak levels of performance, mastering your squash
skillz will take you very far, but if you want your
performances to translate into W's, you must shift the focus of
your training program.
Get physical. Intensity must be the driving factor of your workouts. Push yourself to see improvements in speed, strength and endurance with every workout. In order to run faster for longer, you must practice running faster for longer. Sounds easy!? This is the only way to raise your lactic threshold so that intense efforts can be maintained with a minimal fatigue. Try training continuously at above 85% max heart rate for 20- to 25-minutes, short intense workouts have a profound effect on lactic threshold.
Keep going. Maximise aerobic capacity (V02max) so that more energy is available to sustain your exercise. This is as simple as playing squash for extended periods of time. Don't just go thru the motions, push yourself to the point of exhaustion and once that point is reached, keep going, thats when the intensity of training becomes the key factor to maximizing V02max. If you want to improve your V02max, you need 85 per cent of maximal heart rate throughout the entire game for four-to-five minute stretches several times, which means pushing hard to every ball, on every point from start to finish of every game. Learn to empty the tank!
Use your head. Superior performers can concentrate entirely on their body during training and match play without interruption from extraneous thoughts or negative information which attenuates performance. Top athletes are self-critical, engaging in positive self-talk and encouragement during training and in their lives in general. Bad performances roll off their backs and they regard poor outings as opportunities to learn more about themselves and to develop both physical and mental preparations for competitions. Visualization is key, forming mental images of moving powerfully and quickly, and tuning into these images before major competitions.
Make it easy. Efficiency in exact squash movements prevents wasting precious energy during competition, making hard exertions less stressful. Each muscle in your body is composed of collections of individual muscle cells. Strengthen your muscles so the muscle required can easily sustain a certain level of effort. Simple put, make the muscles you use strong muscles. Activating fewer individual muscle cells lowers your overall energy demand and increases efficiency. Then you can step up to higher intensity squash or conserve large quantities of precious muscle fuel. Training at levels of effort higher than your usual competitive intensity allows you to keep going at the lower intensity of match play. Obviously training at such exertions can't be sustained for long, so employ 30 to 90 second intervals at close to top capacity. During competition, realize that it is not just a muscular event, an athlete's nervous system must learn to control muscular activity at the precise exertion level required to play squash. Specific training allows the nervous and muscular systems to come together in a coordinated way.
Stop. Learn to balance intense training with recovery, so that you can do it all over again. Severely intense workouts are necessary to get to the top and rest is equally important and often missing from a potentially great athlete's schedule. Highly intense workouts produce winning performances but the majority of athletes go overboard, pushing themselves to the brink of fatigue, overtraining and even injury. Learn that optimal training involves exercising and resting; to reach supreme performance levels that include fierce exertions, you must balance them with restoration and recovery. Our bodies need to take a rest, so that we can train hard. So avoid the temptation to carry out too many high-intensity workouts during the training year and learn how to identify overtraining syndrome.
Visit my blog Eau C Squash
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