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It’s the simplest thing on paper but one of hardest moves to pull on court. The split step is a move which many say you can’t play fantastic squash without. And they would be right. The purpose is simple. Squash is an unusually fast-paced game and how quickly you respond and recover the ball decides whether you win or lose. In that intense moment, when your opponent is about to hit the ball and you don’t know where the ball will end up once it touches the stringbed of his racket, you do the split step.
Split step is a small hop players make which suspends them in air for a moment right when their opponent is about to hit the ball. Why do players jump? What’s wrong with just standing firmly on the ground and waiting for the opponent to hit the ball? You can stand firm but you will end up losing:
a) A quicker reaction-time
b) Explosive movement
When you do the small hop of the split step, the small jump that gets you about an inch above the court surface, it’s not the jump but the landing that’s crucial. A split step ensures that you transfer the weight of your body into the legs evenly, compressing them as you land so they act like stringbeds or a trampoline- the next move you make, no matter what the direction will be quicker and more explosive. So this is how a split step ends up working:
a) Your opponent is about to hit the ball but there hasn’t been an impact (the ball has not yet touched the stringbed of his racket)- YOU MAKE A SMALL HOP. Remember split step is not about jumping high, an inch above the court is fine.
b) Your opponent has hit the ball and you are in air, mid-jump.
c) You land evenly on both legs, compress them like springs and move to meet the ball.
Sounds easy? Unfortunately, it’s one of the toughest moves to get right. That due to two reasons:
a) TIMING
b) LANDING
c) FREQUENCY
TIMING
For the split step to work, you need to have impeccable timing. You need to be able to separate that moment when the ball is going to be hit by your opponent from the moment where your opponent has already hit the ball and the moment when it’s heading towards you. Now watch this clip of any rally. See the speed at which the players are making the shots? If you hop and land too early, it’ll lead to a sense of disorientation and stumbling. You’ll immediately lose the point. When pros like Jonathan Power play, they often use a strategy called ‘hold’. Watch Jonathan Power in this video closely. They draw their arms back ready to swing the racket and just when you think they’re going to hit the ball, they go still and briefly delay the shot. Unfortunately, by this moment you’ve already jumped and like Amr Shabana, lost your balance, stumbled and lost the point. To say that timing the jump is crucial is an understatement.
TO IMPROVE TIMING: FRONTHAND BOAST & BACKHAND CROSS-COURT DRILL
One of the most helpful drills in terms of perfecting your timing is the boast/cross-court movement drill. It’s a solo drill and you don’t need a partner to do this. It’s a two-shot movement drill, in which you have to alternatively perform a forehand boast and a backhand cross-court. It’s a diagonal movement, in which you have to keep running between the back of forehand court and the front of the backhand corner. The key to pull this drill off is timing. You’re required to time your shots and your movement between the front and the back perfectly. Once you start reading the ball, the timing would fall in place. If you’re able to hold a rally on your own while shuffling from the front to the back in between shots, you’ll emerge with a stronger sense of timing.
FREQUENCY
Now imagine having to time your split step every time the ball is your opponent’s control in such a fast-paced game. That’s right, you don’t pull the split step once, and you pull it again and again. The sheer frequency with which this move is used means you need to have it perfected till it becomes a part of your natural movement.Watch how effortlessly Ramy Ashour outdoes Nicol and Matthew with his split step. Ashour is unparalleled when it comes to the split step and that’s because he’s able to combine his tracking of the ball, reading of the opponent and speed to get the perfect timing on his split step.
LANDING
But the toughest bit is landing. Placing the weight on your legs can wreck your ankles and lad to a lot of injuries. Which is why split steps require a lot of finesse, you need to distribute the weight evenly between the legs and compress it just enough to give you that explosive kick-off. When you land in a split step, your feet should be a shoulder-width apart and you should be in a squat position, ready to spring explosively towards the ball.
That landing will place stress on your muscles is inevitable. What you can do is make the muscles in your leg stronger, healthier.
TO STRENGTHEN MUSCLES: SPLIT SQUATS
This bit is a must because most squash movements focus on splits and lunges. That’s putting a lot of pressure on your legs.
Place your hands on the sides of your head and place the left foot out forward. Keeping your torso straight, push the right leg out backwards and slowly lower yourself into a squat-like position on your left knee, with your right leg straight and stretching backwards. Keep lowering your torso till the knees of your right leg are touching the ground and the left knee is in the line of the ankle, making a 90 degrees lunge position. Hold this position for 5 seconds then slowly rise back to your standing position. Repeat with right leg forward and left leg backwards. Do at least 8 reps on each knee.
