Randomised Solo Squash Routines

Introduction

Many people find it difficult to decide what solo drills they should perform. They often repeat the same ones, which in itself is not a bad thing, but this often leads to boredom and more importantly a lack of improvement.

In this short article, I show you how to use a pack of playing cards along with a predefined drill list to add some variety and surprise into your solo drill training.

To be clear: I am not suggesting using this idea all the time - just as an occasional activity, perhaps once every 10 training sessions.

A PDF explainer is available for you to print and refer to. The PDF contains the instructions, the example draw, the sample drill list and a black drill list for you to complete: Randomised Solo Routines PDF(150Kb).

I felt like a magician as I was recording this video.

Instructions

Here are the simple instructions

1. Take a pack of cards. I use French, but Spanish and German would work just as well.
   • Separate the Aces, twos and threes into a pile. This is Pile 1.
   • Separate the four to 10 cards into another pile This is Pile 2.
   • Separate the Jack, Queen and King cards into a third pile. This is Pile 3.
2. Shuffle all three piles independently.
3. Take pile 1 and place all the cards in a vertical line on the table/floor in front of you. This is column 1.
4. Take pile 2 and place one card next to each of the cards you have just placed. Discard the remaining cards. This is column 2.
5. Take pile 3 and place them next to the other two cards. This is column 3.
6. You now should have 3 columns of cards with 12 rows.
7. Column 1 is the Drill Minutes. How long you perform each drill. Ace is one minute, the Two is 2 minutes and obviously, the three is 3 minutes. Adjust that to suit your needs. Make each card more or less time - it’s your choice.
8. Column 3 is the Drill Mode:
   • Power: means trying to hit the ball as hard as you can, but still be able to keep the drill going.
   • Control: means being as precise as possible with the ball, maybe even using targets.
   • Technique: means focusing your attention on using good technique.
9. Column 2 is the Drill List. Using the Drill List below, see which drill you should perform. You have one veto meaning you can replace one drill with another random one.

Feel free to adapt idea.

Notes

If all the cards from Pile 1 are used this will give you a 24 minute routine. If you wanted to, you could make the cards count for different amounts of time to either increase or decrease the total time. For example Aces could be 1 minute, Twos could be 90 seconds and Threes could be two minutes or whatever you need to fit your schedule.

There are plenty of solo squash drills available and it would only take a little work to create “themes” of 28 drills that work well together.

Big cards are perfect for squads and juniors

It is obviously an idea that could be turned into an app, and I am slowly exploring that option, but I also like the physical tactile effect that players can feel as though they have “some” control over the outcome. For example, if they wanted to switch some cards around after they have finished then that would work.

The idea would work well for pairs drills and conditioned games too. Off The Wall squash already has something similar: Playing Card Games. Although I believe they are just conditioned games.

Coaches can use large format playing card packs for squads and juniors to make it easier to use/see.

It’s possible to buy blank cards and write the actual drills on those and use those instead of real cards.

Video Version

Final Thoughts

Adding some variety into your training always is a good idea. This basic concept is easy to adapt to fitness and, as with conditioned games, tactical practice too.

Please let me know if you use the idea whether it was useful or not.