Peaking for Performance
by Richard Millman
photo by SquashPics.com
| |
| 
Even the best players in the world, like James Willstrop, practice keeping the ball tight to the sidewall. One way to do this is with a channel game where all balls are played on one side of the court within the width of the service box. |
So here we are in late January with Nationals rapidly approaching. Now's a good time to organize your run in to the event—although if you are a long-term competitive player you may well be into a program of a year or several years that you have designed to try and bring yourself to your peak.
Because we do so many things on an annual basis, it is easy to fall into the trap of treating preparation as an annual event. In point of fact, in my experience, it takes anywhere up to nine years to build peak level performance for a squash player. However, you may not have nine years! So I am going to talk about some things you can do over a shorter term to get you ready for that big event that you are focussing on. Just don't forget that the program you follow this week should fit into the program you follow this month, which in turn should follow the program you are following this season, which should in turn follow the program you are following this year and finally the program you are following over the next two, three or even five years!
Let's make some basic areas to target: Strategic, Technical, Physical, Mental and Performance. I’ll focus on the Strategic and Technical this month and cover the other areas next time.
Strategic—Analysis
Strategic training is one of the least examined and yet most useful Peaking for Performance areas. When did you last video one of your own matches?
Here are some things to look for:
Length: What percentage of your length balls are landing on or just behind the back of the service box? And of those, how many are rebounding more than two feet from the back wall before the second bounce? This is a key question—length should be targeted specifically. It's not good enough to simply aim to the back; you have to have a targeted landing area, and the backline of the service box is a great spot—not too long that the ball comes off the back wall on the second bounce, but long enough to stop the opponent from volleying or intercepting early. Practice until you can get at least eight out of ten within a foot of the line.
Width: What percentage of your straight shots are within one foot of the side wall? Sounds obvious doesn't it? But unless you make a concerted effort to improve it, your 'width' won't stay 'tight.' As you become better at targeting, see how many shots in a row you can bounce within four floor boards of the side wall.
What percentage of your cross-court shots are targeted wide enough to stop your opponent from volleying? Are you considering your opponent's position when you hit the cross-court? Are they up or back in the court? Are you up or back in the court? Are you trying to hit the ball toward the highest/widest point parallel with your opponent? Are yoiu using a pace and height that allows you the opportunity to guarantee that you can be back in position before a possible intercept from your opponent? These are essential elements in cross-court design. You can use pace if the opponent is out of position. Otherwise, slow the ball down to give yourself time to position for the next phase of the rally and to force your opponent to take time before returning.
Serves: How successful are you at using your serve to gain a distinct edge at the beginning of the rally? If you are not as successful as you would like, how many different serves do you use to keep your opponent off balance and guessing? This is the only time when you start with the advantage. You should have a good lob serve. Don't forget that hitting the ball doesn't complete a serve. A service is only complete when you are in the center, relaxed and hunting the return. If your standard lob serve is working well, use it most of the time. But also work on at least a couple of 'change-up' serves: the hammer serve—angles low into the back corner and the hammer straight at the opponent's body. Don't show these serves to the opponent until a key moment where you need to gane an extra edge—perhaps to put the nail in the coffin when you are 6-5 up, or to change the momentum when you are down and you need to get back in hand. Otherwise lull the opponent into thinking that they are going to see your standard lob all day long...'til you detect that they are expecting it, then WHAM! Of course if your standard serve is the WHAM! (and it is working)—do the change-up the other way. The opponent's rhythm will be all messed up.
Return of Serve: How often are you missing the volley? What are you trying to do with the return? A classic error with the return of serve is standing stilland then trying to intercept a moving ball. Make sure you are ready to move before the opponent serves. When they serve, bodily pick up the rhythm of the ball's movement and synchronize your own movement with it. Then you and the ball will be in the same time dimension and you will find it much easier to coordinate your volley. You are volleying everything you possibly can, aren't you? Your standard return should be a high, slow and straight (from a good serve), played as you back away from the ball toward the center of the court. Just like the 'change-up' serve, don't use short attacking returns too often, because even a slow opponent will get the message if you remind them too often. Keep those short attacking returns in reserve. You can try the high cross-court return relatively regularly. But remember the advice about cross-courts earlier in this article.
General Play: When you are losing, what is the general reason? Are you being caught out of position? Is it because you are out of shape? Next month (in the March 2008 edition of Squash Magazine), I am going to give a fairly comprehensive description of sport (squash in particular) specific strength and conditioning. However, as I will be saying again and again, there is no substitute for a qualified sports specific strength and conditioning coach (not just a personal trainer—the key words are 'sports specific.' Someone who can identify the movements, fitness systems and personal areas for development that are relevant to you and what you are trying to achieve. For some good information , see www.tudorbompa.com). So if you are not happy with your fitness, don't just guess at what to do. Make an appointment and get a personal prescription for your fitness regime.
Are you hitting the ball too hard when you are under pressure—thereby giving the opponent a chance to intercept before you're ready? Perhaps the most common fault in our game is hitting the ball too hard. This allows the striker no time to position for the next phase of the rally and affords the opponent the opportunity to intercept. It also leads to the kind of frenetic hack and bash game where order gives way to chaos and controlled patterns of play don't exist. I would even risk saying that there isn't a player in amateur squash who wouldn't improve markedly by slowing down their shots. Slowing the ball down doesn't mean the game slows down. Indeed, if you slow your shots down and give yourself time to position for the next shot, you will find you can volley far more often and put more pressure on your opponent. The volley is the single biggest strategic key in amateur squash. Generally speaking, if you see a game where there is little or no volleying, it's a low standard game and vice versa. But of course you have to construct an opportunity to volley...
Are you using enough height to build your rallies? A high cross-court that approximately traces or flies just above the diagonal out line before it dies in the back corner is called a float. This is not a lob. Lob's go up very high, before descenting at a steep angle. An athlete in reasonable condition can run back and wait for a lob. Not so with a float—the ball is always moving along, even though it will die in the back of the court. The float is the most importantly rally building shot in squash...
Are you using enough height to build your rallies? The cross-court float is a great shot to build a position in the rally. However, you have to be able to come to a standstill, organize your footwork and start your movement into position in order to execute a float properly. Are you trying to play cross-courts under too much pressure? Don't play cross-court under pressure. If you hardly have time to get to the ball—play straight under pressure; tight most importantly and long if you can, but most of all tight to the wall...even if it is short.
How many errors are you making? One of the most common reasons for errors is the thinking behind the shot resulting in the error. There is no such thing as a 'winner' by design. A shot can only be described as a 'winner' after the fact, when it has won. When you hit your shot, if you are going for a 'winner,' you are headed for disaster—and often an error. Why? If you try and end the rally, you put huge pressure on yourself with a tiny margin for error. If, on the other hand, you hit an attacking shot with no thought about likely outcomes, then you are simply increasing the pressure on your opponent. You must maintain a 'performance' mentality, not an 'outcomes' mentality. More on this next month. For interesint reading research, Dan Millman (no relation so far as I am aware) and "The Way of the Peaceful Warrior." If the errors are resulting from bad technique—then get on the practice court and hit at least a thousand of the shots that are letting you down.
When you get an oppening, do you try and finish the rally in one shot, thereby putting all the pressure on yourself? Here's the simple mantra that I gave one of my up and coming students the other day—"Don't play short first and, if your opponent plays short first, attack the short shot long." If you play short first, you give up the front court early in the rally. If you try and go short off the opponent's first short ball, you don't establish dominance on the court. Instead, you hand it straight back to your opponent. Of course, this is not an absolute, but as a general rule of thumb, it will never let you down. Once you establish this pattern in your opponent's mind, of course, as always, you can try for a 'change-up.'
Are you static when hitting the ball (using a "one shot" mentality) or are you playing each shot as part of the sequential flow of the rally (using a "rally construction" mentality)? This is a common occurrence with players that have taken a great deal of technical coaching—worked on 'shots.' Don't lose perspective. A shot can never be more important than a rally. Your shots are only relevant in terms of how they help in constructing the continuous progression of your rally. If you are investing in a shot at the expense of the rally, you are missing the point (there's a pun there!).
There are so many questions that can be answered by video analysis, especially if you have a good coach sit with you to do the analysis. Once you have completed your match analysis, separate out your strategic errors from your technical, physical and mental errors. When you have broken down your strategic choice errors, then you can start to design some conditioned games and exercises to put you on the path to improvement.
Strategic Practice Games
Length game: everything over the short line—great for improving length, width, volleying and particularly decision making with regard to subtle choices for patience.
Channel game: everything on one side within the width of the service box—great for improving width, height, touch and the mentality of building a rally – moving the opponent forwards and back.
Above the line game: everything above the service line but the ball can bounce anywhere—great for height, width and particularly for learning patience to build a rally.
Short games: there are many of these, here are two that I particularly like:
Short game in front of the short line: Each player stays on their own side—one on the forehand and one on the backhand. To serve you have to hit a boast. After that you can hit any shot to your opponent’s side provided that it bounces before the short line. The ball can go over the short line after it has bounced but players are only allowed to put one foot over the short line (in the back of the court) at any time. This game teaches reaction time, ball control under pressure, deception, mental focus, balance—so many things.
Attacking short game: Similar to the one above but slightly different rules: The serve must hit the front wall first . You can hit the ball in the air or bounce it first (that means that you can basically crush the ball into the nick, at your opponent or even try and blast it by them!). The ball can go to the back of the court provided it crosses the short line below the opponent’s head height as it crosses the short line (it can be above head height until it gets to the short line) . This game is a superb teacher of reactions, it helps develop an ability to cope under extreme pressure, hone a player’s awareness of the nicks and the side walls, develops deception, helps balance, turning movements, relevant preparation—a host of things!
Role play games: These are great for working on a particular strategic skill. You can really design them anyway you want, but here are some good ones:
•One player can only play straight—if they shape for a forehand, it has to go down the forehand side.
•One player can only play long.
•One player can only volley
•One player can only volley if they are in front of the short line
•One player can only play short.
Now you can either make the restricted player play against a regular player or you can mix it up so that you have one restriction playing against another.
Conditioned games: You might want to work on a specific area—say lobs. If so, then design the game accordingly. A good one is: cross-court lob, straight length, boast. Both players must adhere to the sequence and a point is scored when the sequence breaks down or a mistake is made. Really you can take any sequence of shots and make a game out of it. Just try and look at your video of your match play and find the sequences where you need to improve. |
| |
|
