If you’re a squash player with serious intent to maximise your on-court performance, then developing your physical conditioning is essential. Amongst the major physical aspects, strength is one area that’s very often neglected by the squash players.

While a fast-paced, high-intensity game might not immediately seem intuitively rooted in strength, being stronger through the body is the foundation of all other athletic qualities. With a good platform your lunge onto the ball will be more solid and stable (allowing you better control and a wider variety of shot choices), your movement will be enhanced from the increased work output available within your muscles.

Also, stronger muscles are more injury-resistant muscles – all the skill, stamina, and speed in the world matter little if you’re always out of action with repetitive injuries.

The following exercises are deemed the essential for any squash player wanting to enhance their game play. We recommend doing each exercise 20 times and repeated 3 times.

  • The Single-Leg Squat is probably the hardest exercise on this list, but once got to grips with it can provide a fantastic boost to your power, stability, and hip/ankle mobility.
  • The reverse lunge is an exercise that has long been used in different forms by athletic conditioning coaches, but this is a variation developed specifically for squash. The movements that make up the exercise cover the full spectrum of lunge actions you undertake on court, and thus provide the perfect squash-specific training tool.
  • The Bulgarian Split Squat is an excellent movement to really help build single-leg strength and power, the Bulgarian Split Squat (or ‘Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat’) is one of the very best exercises you can add to your squash training.

Finally, the Plank or Prone hold- core stability and strength are essential for every movement on the squash court- aim to complete 3 sets of 60s to really build up your endurance.

If you feel you need a personalised support to keep a high level of training, book a PT session with us by emailing athleticmgr@tattersallsclub.org.