Squash With David Palmer

Shed your image of squash as the poncy pursuit of private schoolboys.

Warmed-up, psyched-up, then it’s game on. Image: Getty Images

David Palmer – winner of four British Opens, two World Opens, a Super Series Final, a Commonwealth Games silver – likens the sport to boxing: “There’s two of you in a little box, very close, very fast, very explosive.” The former world number one (he last held that post back in ’06) has founded his gleaming career on powerful attacking strokes and monumental fitness. Neither comes as a surprise. Read on and you’ll find a program so rugged it would make Floyd Mayweather wince.

On-Court 

“Squash is a game where you have to control the ball. You have to be able to hit the ball straight; from the front and from the back. To do that you need very good technique. You don’t have time to think, it’s just bang-bang-bang. It’s a muscle memory sport. That’s why we spend hours practising shots, hitting thousands of balls, so that in pressure situations – nine-all in the fifth game – we can pull off the shots perfectly.“I’ll have two hours on court most mornings doing a very technical session; practising different routines, different shots, working on different movements. You have two parts of the game – the front court game and back court. If we’re practising drop shots, we’ll start with some static training. I know where my coach will put the ball, and I can keep coming in and practising backhand drop, backhand drop, a hundred times over. Other times my coach will have a choice at the front. So I know the ball will be going in one of the two front corners, but the uncertainty makes it more of a game situation. Normally I’ll start with the static drill and then build up, adding new elements to make it more difficult.“The most basic routine on the squash court is the boast (a shot where the ball hits the side wall before the front) and drive. In this drill the person at the front’s hitting straight lengths while the backperson’s working two-wall boasts and three-wall boasts. It’s a routine where you know where the ball’s going, but if you do it properly, it’s hard.”

Talking Tactics

“Squash is all about hitting length, getting the ball deep in the court. A typical tactic is to hit good length and stay in front of your opponent. The deeper you get the ball into the corners, the more likely you are to get a loose return and it’s off that shot that you’re going to try and come in and finish the point off with a volley or a drop to the front. But, of course, often your opponent will get the ball back, even if it’s a good ball to the front, so you have to start again, working the length.“Sometimes you might have to rally up and down the wall. I’ve had 200-300 shot rallies where you’re waiting for an opening but because the guys are hitting it so tight, there are just no opportunities. So that’s when the tactical and the mental side comes in – having the fitness to last those rallies, but also having the mental ability to last; not get impatient, not force a shot that’s not on.”

“I do a lot of lunging on the stability ball (half Swiss ball with a solid, flat base)". Image: Warren Clarke

Mind Muscle

“I’ve done a lot of work over the years trying to build my mental strength. A lot of this strength, of course, comes from my training. But there’s also a lot of off-court work you can do to keep you relaxed, because in those long rallies you have to stay relaxed and calm, let your game flow, hit the shots you want to hit. “I listen to relaxation tapes given to me by a psychologist. I normally listen to them at night or in the morning. I’m always writing affirmation cards – positive little messages which I read at night or in the morning. Stuff like: ‘I am the best player’, ‘I am the fittest player’, ‘I am going to be number one.’ It’s the sort of stuff you don’t tell people because they’ll laugh at you, but it’s all about getting the message into the subconscious. You know, the conscious is black and white, but the subconscious can be fooled into believing things if it’s told over and over, and that’s a big part of squash. Because it’s so fast you don’t have time to think, so you have to do this work off-court. It’s a mental version of muscle memory.”

Go Fast

“In recent times the game’s become faster. We used to play to 15 points, now it’s 11 (if it gets to ten-all you’ve got to win by two). The other factor is, when we play the big tournaments on the four-wall glass courts, the tin is lowered from 48cm to 43cm. It doesn’t sound much, but being able to hit the ball lower at the front effectively makes the court longer because you have to lunge further forward. So these things have made the game a lot faster, a lot more explosive. In the past, back in the Geoff Hunt [Aussie world number one 1975-80] days, there was a lot of up-and-down-the-wall, up-and-down-the-wall, but that doesn’t happen anymore. We’re playing more aggressively, more of a shootout.“I do a lot of lunging on the stability ball (half Swiss ball with a solid, flat base), holding my balance, keeping my core tight. For me it’s one of the best things in my program, because squash is not just about speed, being fast at the front of the court, it’s also about control, and if you can’t control your body you’re in strife. I see it when I coach juniors: they’re incredibly fast to the front of the court, but when they get there their body is out of control. So you need a lot of core strength, a lot of leg strength, glut strength, back strength. If those muscle groups aren’t controlled when you hit the ball, then you can’t control the ball.“I have about 15 different exercises I do on thework. I’ll do straight one-step lunging, then I’ll do sideways lunging. I’ll do a three-step running lunge where I land on the ball, pause, and then push back. I’ll do static lunges where I hold the position for a minute and try to fight the balance. I do 20 seconds of quick-foot step-on, step-off movements. “Basically, all the movements I do on the ball are replicating what I do on the court – going to the front two corners, going sideways, going halfway back, going all the way to the back corners.“I also get thera-bands, tie them around a pole, wrap them around my waist, then run three steps into the resistance of the band, before it pulls me back. I also do a lot of static holds where I’ll hold a medicine ball and then squat down on a single leg and hold it for a minute or two. Where I am now – 32 years old and getting near the end of my career – my biggest challenge is speed. I’m playing 22-year-olds – the days where I’m fast around the court, I go with them, the days where I’m slow, I’m in trouble. I see my speed on the court as the key to my success over the next few years.”

Go Long

“The main endurance work I do is on the track, running 800s. I sprint 600m then jog 200m. I run the 600 in two minutes, jog the 200 in one minute. Then I start again, with no break in between. At the moment I’m trying to build up to eight-to-ten sets nonstop.“Another typical training department is court sprints: running from the back wall to the front, up and down. I can normally do the length of the court in five-to-six steps, so I run a length, lunge, then push off without touching the wall or the floor with my hands. I normally run 20 sprints in a set. At an explosive pace that takes around 50 seconds. I’ll then do 20 sets.“Sometimes I turn it into an endurance exercise and do 300 lengths in 15 minutes. That’s a real mental drill – one of those drills you dread. But knowing you can do 300 court sprints in 15 minutes is a real confidence builder.“Recently I’ve started using the beep test as a training tool. I’ll do five tests in a row with a three-minute break between each test. My goal is to get over 15 on the first one and top 12 on the last one. It’s a killer, but that’s what squash is about – trying to max-out your opponent’s heart rate. If I can get you to your max as quickly as possible, then you’re in trouble; you start making mistakes and you can’t cover the court. The game’s about how many times you can max-out, then recover. Perhaps the guy who’s 50th in the world can do it twice, the top ten guys can do it continually.”

David Palmer. Image: Warren Clarke

Tourney time

“Sometimes our matches go for 40 minutes, sometimes they go for two hours. You get a 90-second break between sets, so it’s not like tennis.

I like tennis and I think tennis players are fit, but I definitely think squash is the harder game. I admire Rafa Nadal for what he did at the Australian Open, but the difference with squash is that during tournaments we don’t have days off between matches, so we play five days in a row, no breaks. Often the key to success is winning your early matches as easily as possible so you have something in the tank for the later matches. If you get sucked into a five-set match on the first day then you’ve got under 24 hours to recover for your next game and you’re struggling.”

Getting Warm

“Because we don’t have days off in between games, preparation is a big thing in squash. Also, with the shorter format of games, you can’t ease your way into a match anymore. You have to be 100 per cent ready on that first point. “My warm-up starts 45 minutes before the match. Depending on the facilities, I’ll try to do at least ten minutes of bike riding or jogging. Then I’ll spend 20 minutes doing some basic stretching – hammies, gluts, quads. Then I’ll get into some more dynamic stuff, ghosting the lunging movements of the game. It’s like a test run – I don’t want to get to the first point of the game, lunge to the front of the court and realise I’m still tight in my hammie. So I ghost my game, play all my shots, and if something is tight then I go back and stretch it. I do this until I’ve found all the little problem areas and sorted them out. Five minutes before the match I’ll do a lot of dynamic movements, getting my body warm. It’s all about quick feet – skipping, plyometric work, jumping. I like to have a really good sweat up by the time I get on the court. But I always make sure, three minutes out, that I sit down and chill-out, think about the mental side of the game, what I’m trying to do with a particular opponent.”

Cooling Off

“Again, with back-to-back matches, recovery is a huge factor. After a match I’ll jump on a bike or jog for 15 minutes. Because of the explosive movements, squash builds up a lot of lactic, so it’s all about flushing that acid out of my muscles. Also, you really need to focus on getting food and drink into yourself 20 minutes after games; I’ve got my sports drinks, my recovery drinks, my bananas.“I don’t normally stretch straight after a match – I like to let my body recover. After getting back to the hotel, maybe an hour or two after the match, that’s when I like to stretch. If I stretch straight after a match, when my muscles are still very fatigued, I’m only doing them more damage.“When I need ice baths, I’ll certainly use them. Not all facilities have them, so I’ve often got my coach buying bags of ice to empty into the bath tub at the hotel. I won’t usually use ice baths after the first rounds of a tournament, but if I’ve had a huge semi-final and I’ve got the final the next day, then I’ll use anything to help me recover – ice baths, massages, getting my Skins on, eating the right food. At 32, I can’t get away with not doing recovery properly.“Then you start again! We might finish a game at ten o’clock at night and then be back on court at three in the afternoon the next day. Typically we like to practise in the morning, back to the hotel for lunch, then back to play in the afternoon. Time goes quick at a tournament.”

– Aaron Scott