Finding time for squash fitness training is the problem almost every club player has, and it isn’t a motivation problem. It’s family, work, and a social life, all competing with the hours you’d rather spend on court.
Which is where bolt-on sessions come in: a way of fitting the conditioning work in around a schedule that hasn’t got room for another gym trip.
What A Bolt-on Session Actually Is
With training time scarce due to all our other commitments, squeezing extra sessions into the week to get the necessary squash-specific conditioning work in can be very difficult. This is where bolt-ons are perfect, allowing you to get in some short, sharp sessions to help provide an additional physical training boost even when your schedule is tight.
Bolt-on sessions are succinct, optimised fitness routines of no more than around 10 minutes duration, that you can add on to your regular squash sessions. Exercises such as ghosting, court sprints, or circuits can all be condensed into short, streamlined routines, that you simply ‘bolt on’ at the end of your practice matches or on-court drills.
By weaving these bolt-on sessions into your routine, you’re squeezing in crucial extra fitness work to help further optimise your training potential.
What Bolt-on Sessions Give You
- Boosted physical fitness: Bolt-on sessions allow you to get some work in on specific fitness elements that you otherwise wouldn’t have the time for, such as speed and agility, strength, and endurance, helping you build a solid athletic base for your squash.
- Time-saving: Rather than separate, lengthy gym sessions, these efficient workouts integrate smoothly into your existing training, helping you achieve the most work in the least amount of time.
- Adaptability: The variety in bolt-on sessions means they can span across different physical training aspects – intense stamina drills, controlled strength and stability work, fast-paced speed workouts – so you can build sessions around your own fitness goals.
- Better performance on court: The extra training builds a stronger foundation, enhances conditioning, and boosts overall athleticism, leading to better performance on the court, with increased physicality, faster reactions, and a sharper competitive edge.
- Injury prevention: Sessions focusing on strength, stability, and flexibility in particular, are key in helping to avert injuries. By developing more robustness across crucial muscles and joints, you’re less likely to encounter most common squash injuries. These exercises also help in rectifying muscle imbalances and improving biomechanics, and minimising overuse injuries.
Fitting Them Into Your Week
Integrating bolt-on sessions is straightforward, and they can be adapted to fit whatever your time availability allows for. You can slot these sessions in before or after on-court play, or even on your ‘rest days’ if you want to get some light additional work in on your core or mobility. The aim is to ensure these sessions complement your on-court training and tackle any specific areas needing improvement.
If you’re building a wider plan around them, it’s worth reading our 5-step guide to creating an effective training programme and considerations for improving your squash-specific fitness alongside this.
For squash players trying to improve while juggling a tight schedule, bolt-on sessions are one of the most practical options there is. Adding these compact routines to your week lets you work on specific fitness areas, improve performance, help prevent injury, and make the most of limited training time.
To get started, try the SquashSkills Training app (available for SquashSkills members). It’s packed with bolt-on sessions, each targeting a different fitness aspect. Whether your focus is cardio for endurance or strength training for power and stability, there’s a wide range to choose from.
For an overview of every part of squash fitness, see the 6 foundations of fitness for squash.
B.Sc.(Hons), CSCS, NSCA-CPT, Dip. FTST
SquashSkills Fitness & Performance Director
Watch the playlist in full now
Over the course of the playlist, Gary reveals a variety of exercises to add on to the end of your squash sessions to help improve your speed, strength, endurance, and mobility.
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