Using The Back Foot Near Back Of Serve Box

Total Squash - 07 Mar 2010

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One of the fundamental things you are told when you start squash is that Squash is a side on game. What is meant by this is that you want your chest facing the side wall for most of your shots.

A good way of promoting your chest towards the side wall is to put your front foot forward, my left foot on the forehand as I'm right handed. The disadvantage of this movement is that it takes more time to get my front foot all the way across than it is to move my right foot into position. This is because my right foot is already promoted towards this side of the court... it has less distance to travel and hence quicker.

If we look at this area of the court here, at the back of the service box, we can get the best of both worlds. Moving from the T onto my right foot is the quickest way and I my chest is now turned to the side wall nicely. I am in a great position to hit my straight drive and get it fading into the side wall and push back to the T.

If you are more comfortable getting your feet round and playing from your left foot here and you can do it well and have time, by all means go for it. However there will be occasions when you don't have time to do this so you will need to use your right foot. If you watch the pros play they almost always use their back foot at the back of the service box on the forehand side and quite often on the backhand side too... so that should tell you something!

On the backhand side of the court the 'back foot' advantages are still there but they are less pronounced. By putting my left foot (back foot) in it has less distance to travel than my right so movement is a bit quicker. However putting my left foot in doesn't help me turn as much as when I get my right foot across. So I have to make a bit more effort with my shoulder turn when I use my back foot.

You will find it more difficult as this left leg does get in the way of your swing slightly so you will need to concentrate on keeping your space away from the ball.

Playing the ball off the back foot is useful in many areas of the court but we will leave that for other clips!


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