Squash training on an empty court: the 40-minute solo plan

Solo squash training splits into four blocks: 12 minutes of straight drives, 8 of figure-of-eight volleys, 8 of boast-drive-boast, and 10 minutes of ghosting. That's 40 minutes with the changeovers. All you need is an empty court and a ball that stays warm.

What a 40-minute squash training session looks like

Block	Time	What it trains	Target
Straight drives	12 min	Length and racket prep	First bounce behind the service box
Figure-of-eight volleys	8 min	Early contact, racket-face control	30 unbroken volleys
Boast-drive-boast	8 min	Linking the front and back corners	8 clean reps each side
Ghosting	10 min	Movement pattern and recovery	8–10 rounds, 30 seconds on, 30 off

The order isn't arbitrary. Drives go first because they're the least tiring and the most technical, and you want a fresh arm when you're grooving a swing path. Ghosting goes last because it wrecks your legs. Most squash drills assume someone is feeding you from the other side of the court; these four don't. Training for squash alone means you control every variable except the one that matters most in a match, so the structure has to do the pushing.

Use a ball that will still bounce

Hitting alone generates maybe a third of the ball-warming work of a hard game, and a double yellow dot cools right back down during every rest interval. Drop to a single yellow, or a red dot if the court is cold. The point of the session is where the ball lands, not proving you can play the slowest ball in the bag — swap back when you have a partner. If you're unsure which is which, the dot system is standardized across manufacturers.

Straight drives: 12 minutes on length

Six minutes forehand, six backhand, in sets of about 20 with 30 seconds between them. Stand behind the short line, feed yourself off the side wall, and hit straight — the ball traveling parallel to the wall, close enough that a racket wouldn't fit comfortably between the two.

Aim roughly half a meter to a meter above the service line, which sits 1.78 m up the front wall. You'll calibrate inside the first two minutes: too low and the ball dies mid-court, too high and it sits up off the back wall for an easy kill. What you're chasing is a first bounce behind the service box. The short line is 5.44 m from the front wall and each service box is 1.6 m square, so the back edge of the box sits a little over 7 m in, leaving around 2.7 m of floor behind it on a 9.75 m court. Narrow target, and the one that decides rallies — worth knowing how the rest of the court is marked out before you aim at lines.

Two faults to watch for. Racket prep that starts after the bounce — it should be up before the ball crosses the short line. And drifting toward the middle, which leaves you hitting across your body instead of beside it.

Figure-of-eight volleys: 8 minutes of racket control

Stand a step or two behind the short line, near the middle. Volley crosscourt into the front wall so the ball returns on the other side, then volley it back the other way. Forehand, backhand, forehand — the ball traces a figure of eight in front of you and your feet barely move.

Count unbroken reps. Thirty is a solid working number, and if you're breaking down at eight you're hitting too hard. Keep contact at shoulder height or above. The racket face does the aiming here; the swing stays short.

Boast-drive-boast: 8 minutes linking the corners

One rep: from the back corner, hit a boast into the side wall so the ball crosses to the front; chase it down; hit a straight drive along the wall; recover through the T as that drive travels back; boast again. Eight reps, 45 seconds of rest, then the other side.

This is the drill that exposes whether your length is real, because a loose drive gives you nothing to boast off — you end up scrambling instead of repeating a pattern. Keep the boast low. A boast that floats sits up in the front corner and, in a match, gets killed. If any of the shot names are new, each has a specific job in a rally.

Squash ghosting: six corners, 30 seconds on, 30 off

Ghosting is movement without a ball. Racket in hand, you move from the T to a corner, play the shot with a full swing, and recover. Six positions: front-left, front-right, both side walls at the short line, back-left, back-right. Run them in order for the first two rounds, then randomize.

Work 30 seconds, rest 30, eight to ten rounds. That's the block.

Squash ghosting earns its ten minutes for a reason that has nothing to do with fitness. In a real game you might reach the front-left corner three or four times, and half of those are compromised lunges off the wrong foot. Ghosting puts you there forty times in a session, every rep with the same split-step, the same lunge, the same push back to the T. The ball goes where the rally sends it, not where your weakest pattern needs it — squash footwork drills supply those repetitions on demand.

There are two common ways to cheat it: clipping the recovery so you never actually get back to the T, and shortening the lunge as you tire. If the last round looks different from the first, do seven honest rounds instead of ten. Treat these as squash agility drills rather than conditioning — movement quality is the measurement, not sweat.

The progress test: 20 drives behind the service box

Finish every session the same way. Twenty straight drives on your stronger side, self-feed included, and count how many bounce for the first time behind the service-box line. Write the number down before you leave the court.

It moves slowly and it doesn't flatter you, which is more than most squash solo drills offer. Ten out of twenty is a normal place to start. The target is your own previous number, not anyone else's, and a run of sessions in the low teens tells you more than one good day at seventeen.

Solo work has no score, so matches are the only place the drills show up. Squash Scoreboard is a squash scoreboard app for iPhone and Apple Watch that tracks match scores, which makes it easy to look back and see whether the weeks you drilled line up with the results.

FAQ

How often should I do solo squash training?

Two or three sessions a week alongside normal match play is plenty, and one is far better than none. Solo work is technical rather than maximal, so it tolerates frequency in a way that hard games don't. If you have a single court slot and no partner, use it here instead of skipping.

Is ghosting better than running for squash fitness?

They do different jobs. Running builds an aerobic base; ghosting trains the specific pattern — split-step, lunge, recover to the T — in the exact positions a match puts you in. Most club players get more from ten focused minutes of ghosting than from an extra road mile.

Can beginners do squash solo drills?

Yes, with a slower target. Start with straight drives only, about 10 minutes a side, and ignore the behind-the-box target until the ball reliably comes back to you. A blue or red dot ball keeps the rally alive long enough to learn something.

How long should a solo squash session be?

Forty minutes is roughly the limit of useful concentration when nobody is pushing you. Past that, technique drifts and you're just hitting. If court time is left over, add ghosting rounds rather than more drives — the squash drills that build technique degrade fastest once you're tired.