I recently got back to the UK after a 6-month trip travelling around Canada, which was absolutely incredible! However, this meant that I haven't actually been able to play squash for around 6 months.
I knew I was going to be a little rusty getting back on court... but I didn't think it would be this rough!
After playing a grand total of three times since returning, my body is an absolute wreck, my shots are very poor, and my lungs are on fire after one game.
In fact, I've been so shocked by how much my game has been affected that I felt an urgent need to write about it in this article.
Perhaps my experience will be familiar to you, perhaps my thoughts on the matter might help you if you're struggling with a similar issue, or perhaps you might just enjoy reading about my suffering...
So yeah, 6 months off the court. I think that's the longest I've ever gone without stepping on a squash court in my whole life since I took up the game.
During my time travelling around Canada, I did try my best to stay fit. I did a lot of running and a good few HIIT workouts as well as some strength and flexibility exercises.
But, as a friend of mine said the other day when I was talking to him about this, 'playing squash is the only thing that can fully prepare your body for playing squash'. This is quite a silly quote, but I also think he's right.
If you have a long stretch of time off-court for whatever reason, you can try your best to maintain fitness and prepare your body for a return to squash, but ultimately, that first match/training session back is always going to be rough on your body no matter how prepared you are.
Anyway, a bit about my personal experience... On my first time back on the court, I played a friendly match with a friend of mine.
Shots-wise, I wasn't hitting the ball too badly, I was struggling to gain confidence taking the ball into the front and I couldn't find the right width with my cross courts, but that didn't really phase me as it was to be expected.
What came next was the heavy breathing. This really took me by surprise as it kicked in very suddenly at around 7-7 in the first game.
Not even a game into the friendly match and I was really struggling to catch my breath. It became very hard to last in rallies that were longer than 8 shots and it was forcing me to try to end rallies earlier. However, I was breathing so hard that the accuracy of my shots was getting even worse.
After this came the muscular issues. I became very reluctant to lunge into the front corners and when I did so I felt very close to getting cramps every single time. My butt was also starting to get very sore.
Needless to say, I lost that match but I didn't mind. I was just very shocked at just how much I was struggling.
The next day I was in a lot of pain too, it felt like almost every muscle in my leg was incredibly tight, my back was sore, and I was struggling to raise my racquet arm above my head.
Luckily, my second time back on the court wasn't until about 5 days after my first so I did manage to recover enough to play again. This second squash game was a team match, so there was a little more pressure on me this time.
I was pretty nervous in the warm-up but as soon as the game started I felt focused. I managed to go 2-0 up quite fast which seemed almost like a miracle and my shot accuracy and consistency were great, however, in the third game, things took a turn...
I hit the wall and felt like I couldn't breathe at all. Every point was a huge struggle and it was so bad that I couldn't hide it from my opponent either, so he started drawing out the rallies as long as he could.
He took the third 11-7.
I needed to win the fourth as I honestly didn't think I could last a fifth game on top of that.
My muscles were starting to get very sore too and, once the fourth had started, I felt very reluctant to lunge into the front corners. I ended up slowing things down as much as possible using lots of height to give myself as much time as possible.
I luckily won the fourth game (and the match) 15-13.
Again, after this match, I knew I was in for a painful few days of recovery, however, I knew this second match felt better than my first match back.
My third time on court was another friendly (one night ago) just two days after the team match and it ended up being the worst match out of the three I played since getting back. I was absolutely exhausted and my muscles were hurting within the first game.
When I got off court and did some reflecting, my first thought was that I'd taken a step back which was frustrating. However, after mulling it over for a while, I realised that I probably pushed things a bit too far playing again that soon after a tough team match.
As I write this newsletter, I'm starting to realise that it's definitely going to take longer than I originally thought to get back to the standard I was playing at before my trip.
As always, I like to try and include something helpful to you (the reader) in the On The 'T' Newsletter, so I thought I'd go through a few things that seem to be working well when it comes to getting back into squash.
Although the initial shock at how much my game had suffered was pretty worrying at first, the incremental improvements each time I played were pretty noticeable.
Ultimately, I think just getting as much court time in as possible is a good thing, but don't overdo it like I did and listen to your body. Playing three matches in quite short succession probably wasn't the best approach and I'm now paying the price because I'm going to have to wait even longer until I play again.
Instead, I'd advise just doing some solo practice and light drills to minmise the initial impact on your body and get your shots back up to scratch. I'd also highly recommend doing some ghosting practice to get your movement and flow back.
Taking it slow is probably the biggest lesson and I learned it the hard way.
The mental side of things has also really shocked me. Experiencing pain and exhaustion that was far worse than I'd initially expected definitely did some damage to my confidence in my squash.
My advise for this is to try not to expect too much from yourself, coming back to squash after a long time out is always going to be mentally tough, but just try to take small steps and focus on your goal of returning back to your best squash, it will come in time.
Otherwise, do plenty of dynamic stretches between training sessions to help your body recover (I found that this has helped a lot with the muscle pain), there are plenty of YouTube videos on these kinds of thing if you're struggling for inspiration.
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