Which Squash Ball Should I Use?

Bounce and speed of the ball

One would think that the more the ball bounces, the further the ball would go and faster it would make the game. This is not true. The more the ball bounces, the longer it stays in the air and the more time one has to reach it. The greater distance travelled by the ball is negligible is counter-acted by the bounce time. Slowing down the game is useful for several reasons. Less experienced players could use the extra running time and maybe have a second swat at the ball in case they missed it the first time. Having Aces and two-, three-, four- second rallies is not an efficient (nor fun) way to improve. There are way too many restarts and a restart has preparation time (when you collect the ball and get into serving position) during which there is no play. Slow bounces might also require constant sprinting that the player may not be prepared for and will require breaks in between rallies. To be efficient, you need more rally time and less of the in between stuff.

Another reason to slow the game down is if you want to get an endurance work out. While having short rallies is good for power and strength, it primarily works your sprinting energy systems. For the aerobic energy system (important for endurance), it would be more useful to have longer rallies and this is an easy way to increase rally time.

The balls are colour coded. This can be identified by looking at the dot on the ball.

Table from Wikipedia.org (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash)

Size of the ball

Most squash balls are of roughly the same size. However for beginners, there are bigger balls available. The Dunlop “Max Blue” and the Dunlop “Max progress” are 12% and 6% larger than a regular squash ball respectively. They also have a greater bounce.

Environmental effects on the ball

During play the ball heats up and gets rather warm. This makes it faster and increases the bounce. If you play in a colder setting (like my gym in the winter), it might be a good idea to take account for that. Altitude may also have an effect. Places of high altitude will have faster ball speeds and so a slower ball may be preferred.

Training for competition

If you are training for competition you may want to use a double yellow ball. Using a bigger or faster ball, could perhaps be useful for certain drills in practise, but overall may interfere with your performance at competitions.

Life of a ball

The more a ball is used, the more air leaves the inside of the ball. The ball becomes less and less bouncy. In a sense, the ball goes up the chart (e.g. in time a yellow ball will play like a double yellow). If you’re tight on cash, you may want to buy a faster ball because when double yellow balls get slow. They get really slow and barely playable.