Category: Performance

While elite-level squash sees players carry a variety of frames and sizes, according to the PSA’s bio info most male professional players are typically around 5’11/6’0 tall, and between around 70kg and 80kg (and shorter and lighter for females). At an amateur level however, there tends to be a far greater breadth of shapes and body types.

So if you identify as a larger player, or if you’re currently carrying excess weight beyond your usual norms, what should you be aware of as regards adjustments to your training?

There are many things you can do to improve your squash, from training hard in the gym to getting on court with a good coach, to playing matches against players of a range of different styles and standards (plus logging in regularly to SquashSkills of course!).

We’re privileged to have top English coach David ‘DP’ Pearson back with us talking about playing different styles on SquashSkills this week, one of the very best in the business.

We have a brand new edition of our popular ’11 Points on Fitness’ Q&A, this time featuring English international and world number 24, Tom Richards.

Tom had a very good start to the 2019/20 season in the China Open, overcoming Egyptian world junior champion Mostafa Asal with an excellent 3/0 victory, before falling to a very narrow 3/2 loss against world no. 1 Ali Farag in the quarter-finals.

We’re thrilled to welcome back Dutch star LJ Anjema to SquashSkills this week, taking a look at the topic of ‘attacking patterns of play’.

SquashSkills favourite Jesse Engelbrecht is back in the spotlight for our featured content this week, with an exciting new series looking at ‘angles of attack’.

We’ve got an extra special feature on the site this week, with Peter Nicol taking an in-depth look at the magic and artistry of one of the all-time great players – the sensational Egyptian shotmaker, Ramy Ashour.

Whatever level you play at, your training time is valuable. Whether you’re a purely recreational player juggling a busy work and family calendar trying to fit in a few extra sessions a week to improve, or you’re an elite level professional looking to cover the entire spectrum of solo practice, drill sessions, matchplay, and physical training, time is rarely something that we have in abundance.
To help you maximise your precious training time and get the very most out of your available session slots, check out our SquashSkills top 5 tips.

We have a brand new edition of our popular ’11 Points on Fitness’ Q&A, this time featuring Egyptian star Mazen Hesham.

Mazen has been on a long road back from injury after first bursting onto the scene several years ago, but a big win over Diego Elias at this week’s British Open is a sign that he’s almost back to his best.

We asked Malcolm Willstrop what the single most important attribute was in order to become a successful squash player. His answer… Accuracy.    

We’ve had some fascinating new content on the site from world number 7 Paul ‘Superman’ Coll, looking at how he prepares himself for an important match and some of the things he does as part of his daily routine to build up to it. The aim of this article is to give you some practical tools you can take away from Paul’s advice, and help make your preparation as conducive to optimal performance as possible.

The entire purpose of practice is to get better and there are different ways to achieve that, depending on how much better you want to get. Not everybody wants to be a professional and take their sport incredibly seriously and their practice will be a reflection of that. Some will have a desire to improve and be willing to push themselves in order to achieve the improvement that they seek. A very small percentage of people will want to be professionals, so their practice needs to prepare them for the demands of professional squash.

Here at SquashSkills we’ve highlighted many times how important the warm-up is for you to be able to compete at your highest possible level, yet it’s an area that is still very often neglected at an amateur level. 

With our new content this week we’ve given you an insight into not just why we do it and how important it is, but we’ve also laid out all the details as to how to properly construct a squash-specific warm-up of your own… So now there really is no excuse!

Squash is an extremely fast-paced, high-energy sport, which can place a great deal of strain on the body. This short, intense nature coupled with the frequent twists, turns, and lunges of a rally, makes it a game that can unfortunately present quite a high injury risk.

This risk is typically greater for the older player, whose body has more mileage on the clock than their younger counterparts. For this reason, it’s crucially important that veteran players are more diligent and conscientious in their training to help keep them off the physio’s bed, and on the squash court.

I first saw Amr Shabana at the World Junior Championships in Cairo in 1996, where Lee Beachill, Stewart Boswell and Anthony Ricketts were also competing and Shabs had the reputation of being a shotmaker without serious intent.

We’re delighted to welcome Camille Serme to SquashSkills this week, as she takes us through her approach to the game technically, tactically, physically, and mentally – all of the 4 crucial components of the competitive squash player.

Here are five reasons why Ali Farag has risen to the top of the men’s game since graduating from Harvard University.