Contents
The nine themes of squash
Paak renders squash as (age band × theme). The nine themes come from the sport's own grouping — and solo is a first-class theme, not a fallback: squash is the only racket sport where you genuinely improve alone against a wall.
| Theme | What it trains |
|---|---|
| Movement & ghosting | The T, the split-step, the lunge, ghosting — movement, squash's first skill. |
| Length | Straight and cross length to the back corners — the founding shot. See Length & the back corners. |
| Short game | The drop, the counter-drop and the lob — the front of the court. |
| Volley | Taking the ball early, stealing time, holding the T. |
| Serve & return | The lob serve, the hard serve, the straight-length return — the disciplined opening. |
| Boast & diagonal | The boast family and the attacking diagonal. |
| Condition games | Match play under a constraint, always PAR-11 — the native opposition form. |
| Solo | Lengths, the drop-drive cycle, volley figure-eights — the sport's signature. See Solo practice & routines. |
| Physical | Interval ghosting, court shuttles, lunge mechanics — squash's own conditioning. |
The outline: warm-up, two mains, a condition game
The shape Paak's generator reproduces: a warm-up with no high intensity (movement, ball familiarisation, leg preparation), two mains on the chosen theme, a condition game that applies the day's behaviour under real pressure, a cool-down. The minutes are a coach's choice; what each block contains traces to the published canon.
| Block | ~ min | Traced content |
|---|---|---|
| Warm-up | 10 | Gentle ghosting to the corners, ball familiarisation for the youngest, controlled lunges — never high intensity |
| Main 1 | 15 | The day's theme, off a cooperative feed — form before pressure |
| Main 2 | 15 | The same theme, in decision form or as a routine — closer to the game |
| Condition game | 15 | The constraint that rewards the day's behaviour (length-only, must-volley…), PAR-11 |
| Cool-down | 5 | Easy mobility, stretching |
The court format — squash's specificity
A squash club plans with a constraint field sports never meet: N players for one or two courts. That is why every drill in the library carries its format:
| Format | What it is | When it saves the session |
|---|---|---|
| Solo | One player, one court — lengths, cycles, figure-eights | Half the group works alone while the other half is coached |
| Pairs | Two players — feeds, routines (boast-drive, drop-lob) | The heart of the technical block |
| Group | 3+ players rotating on one court — king of the court, three-player rotations | Six juniors, two courts: rotation keeps everyone active |
| Match | A condition game or open match, PAR-11 | The game block, and the test of the learned behaviour |
The session reflex: for every block, ask who is on the court and what everyone else is doing meanwhile. A good squash session is a good rotation — solo work is not a stopgap, it is half the programme.
Dosage by age band
At u9, everything is play and graded form: lively ball, catches allowed, targets — the rally first, fine technique after. At u13, the foundations: length, serve, split-step, the ball climbing the ladder. At u17, the full game with the competition ball, tactical condition games and refereed matches. At sen, the whole curriculum — and for returning senior players, the graded build-up the sport's cardiac literature recommends (see Physical preparation & safety).
Frequently asked questions
How many players per court?
Why a condition game rather than free match play?
From what age does solo work make sense?
Sources
Squash's published training canon — the WSF coaching framework, England Squash Junior 101 and Squash Canada Beyond the Nick (cited as foreign curricula), FFsquash (Mini-Squash, École de Jeunes) — for the named forms (solo, routines, condition games, ghosting); fine numeric parameters (rep counts, zone sizes) are coaching practice, not federation publications, and the library says so drill by drill. · Paak's squash corpus, files 00 (the nine themes) and 03 (technique and pedagogy) — verified September 2026. No federation publishes a ready-made minuted session: the split is a coach's choice.