Squash Drills For Speed and Accuracy

Squash is an exciting sport that requires agility and speed to play successfully, as well as strength for powerful volleying returns.

Predictability and responsiveness can best be nurtured during on-court sessions with a squash coach, coupled with sports-specific drills and max sprint training in strength and conditioning.

Ghosting Drill

Many coaches recommend the Ghosting drill as a tool to increase player movement and speed. Players can do it either independently or with their coach, with changes made easily to suit individual players. When performing this exercise, remember to focus on where the ball is always, rather than getting caught up with its patterns or sequence – an often-committed mistake when doing Ghosting sessions is losing focus of where their focus should lie: on where their ball should go instead.

Footwork training is essential to becoming an efficient squash player, whether running to the front and back corners of the court or just moving side to side while performing lunges and sideways shuffles – the faster and more effectively one moves around the court, the more opportunities will present themselves for taking shots against their opponents.

Ghosting was pioneered by Jonah Barrington as a means of challenging both himself physically and mentally without needing the aid of either a ball or partner. He would perform ghosting sessions for up to an hour at a time, playing match after match in his mind while learning how to respond to various types of shots – an approach which any player who wishes to become truly elite level can replicate themselves.

Ghosting drills consist of moving from the T into each corner (or as close to it as possible) of the court and back out again at an increased pace, helping develop some of the speed elements of basketball without outpacing themselves and throwing themselves off balance.

Some individuals choose to time themselves while performing this exercise and see how quickly they can cover from one end of the court to the other. Timing yourself allows newcomers to gauge their improvement and set personal goals for themselves.

Other players may wish to incorporate shot feeding and ghosting sessions as an effective means of developing their game more holistically. A coach could feed different types of shots to their player while ghosting into those positions while focusing on hitting and responding appropriately for each shot that was provided.

As players get better and more adept with ghosting exercises, they can expand to more advanced combinations of shots and ghost movements. For instance, players could ask their coach to feed them a high, deep service line height shot while performing ghost movements towards another part of the court.