Put It Into Practice: Linking Movement To Match Play With Jesse Engelbrecht

Jesse’s aim in this playlist is to give you some practical tools you can bring in to really help your movement effectiveness. Being more fluid, more rhythmic, and more efficient, can make a huge difference to your game even without any reciprocal development in your racket skills. Movement is one of the core competencies of the sport of squash, and Jesse is one of the very best in the world to learn from.

Much of what Jesse introduces in his videos may be familiar concepts to many, but here the goal is to really link them into a realistic rally based scenario. Elements covered include the split step and how it links to ‘watching’, the most useful ghosting patterns, and Jesse’s own twist on traditional court sprint exercises.

Above all, the drills that Jesse highlights are grounded in being as transferable to your matchplay as possible. All of the theory and hypotheticals in the world are fine, but the aim here is to really help develop movement proficiencies that can be realistically adapted and effectively incorporated into your competitive play.

The aim of this blog is to give you some ideas of the best drills and practices you can use to start working on the primary fundamentals of optimal match-specific movement and help you become more confident and consistent in this crucial area of the game. Once you start assimilating some of the physical aspects that Jesse introduces, you’ll soon start to see some real differences in your competitive performance.

We’ve put together a selection of brand new solo and pairs sessions for you to try, built around the main points covered by Jesse in the playlist. Watch through the videos first and then click through the links to the integrated sessions below to check them out, and discover how developing a better ability to link your movement to your matchplay can really help you make significant strides in your game.

Put it into practice

Solo session

This session contains a series of drills to practise on your own, to hone the fundamentals of good movement.

Pairs session

This session consists of a selection of pairs drills and conditioned games to practice, to help you work on the key points as discussed by Jesse in the playlists.

Fitness session

Having a good base of strength and stability will help you when you’re working on your movement, as it’ll allow you to transition into a steadier and more balanced position. Give this session a try, working a variety of lunge variants and bodyweight exercises.

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Creating flow through the shot with Lee Drew

In this series, Lee Drew takes us through the fundamentals of linking movement to the shot and how to get flow in and out of each shot.

French movement with Thierry Lincou

In this series, former World Champion and World Number One Thierry Lincou takes charge to discuss why the French style of movement is so effective.

Let us know how you get on with the sessions, we’d love to hear your feedback!