Game-based squash training ideas for coaches and players

In a new series for the ESF Coaching Hub, renowned coaches Michael Khan and Renato Gallego will be sharing examples of game-based squash training that will help bring fresh ideas to squash coaching sessions.

Game-based training places strong emphasis on keeping practice relevant to in-match situations. Whilst drills and repetition produce results, game-based training produces more creative players who are able to quickly adjust to changing situations during matchplay.

Game-based training (sometimes called a ‘constraints-based’ approach) works by bending a sport’s traditional rules, changing space or even changing equipment (e.g. heavier racket, faster balls).

These changes force players to rethink and adapt. New games are new challenges, and the process of finding the best solution is enjoyable, engaging and competitive.

The rules of these games can be adapted to balance the levels of the players. These are a few examples:

– The better player’s first bounce must be behind the service box, with the weaker player it is second bounce
– The weaker player can take one double bounce per rally
– The better player earns points with English scoring vs PAR for the weaker player

Michael Khan, Director of the ESF Coaching Committee, and Renato Gallego, a Level 4 coach, World Squash tutor and member of the ESF Marketing and Communications committee, led a cohort of coaches at a World Squash Level 3 coaching course in Guatemala in June.

Across the five-day course, they asked the eight coaches to come up with game-based ideas which were then evaluated in groups. The course, co-organised between World Squash Coaching and the Guatemalan Squash Association, was very interactive, rather than prescriptive, with participants empowered to discover answers for themselves.

Each week here on The Coaching Hub, we will reveal different game-based coaching drills from the coaching course in Guatemala, with an explanation about what each game teaches the participants. Some are squash coaching classics with a defined tactical or technical purpose, others are simply a fun way to start or finish a session.