By Jay D. Prince
This month, one of the stories you’ll read is about Jamie Crombie and Ben Oliner, two main-stays in the SL Green Division of the U.S Championships. Both are very fit, and both have taken their squash training outside the court to tackle other disciplines. Crombie qualified for the World Duathlon (run, bike, run) in only his third event, and Oliner mastered the Empire State Building again this year, winning the amateur division.
Those two examples of the non-squash activities that benefit from the training done for squash, got me thinking about what other squash players have done outside the game—things that require fitness.
My only story is being invited to ride in the Seattle-to-Portland bike ride (206 miles) on three days notice. I hadn’t been on my bike for 20 years (and yes, it was 20 years old), and I’d just had my elbow surgery about 10 days earlier. But I thought about it and decided to do it since I felt I was fit enough from the fitness gained by playing squash regularly. My only real concerns were whether my bike would make it, and what it would be like to sit on a bike for that long. We finished the ride in 14 hours. I’m glad I did it and would consider doing it again.
I also know that Chris Burrows from Seattle is about to finish his seven summits on the seven continents this summer when he climbs the highest peak in Russia. We’ll run that story in full as soon as he completes the task. By the time he’s done, he’ll have summitted the seven peaks in four years. Pretty impressive.
There are lots of junior players who also play lacrosse, field hockey, soccer and countless other sports.
As we told you last month, Richard Elliott has become an accomplished triathlon racer, and I’m sure there are lots of you out there who have stories about physically demanding accomplishments, and I’d like to hear about them.
Marathons? Biathlons? Rock Climbing? You name it, and when you send me an email, please include a quick message about what sort of training you’ve done for your other activities—or has squash training been enough?
On an entirely different subject, we would like to welcome Damon Leedale-Brown to Squash Magazine as the newest writer of regular articles in the LessonCourt section. Damon, who has been heavily involved in squash in England, brings expertise in sports science, nutrition, conditioning and squash to the magazine, and in his first column explains how to determine exactly what kind of training you ought to be doing to get the most out of your squash.
If you have questions that might fit Damon’s expertise, please feel free to email us with questions and/or possible subject for him to cover.
See you on the courts!
