Racquetball Basics - Footwork Drills

Malia Bailey: Hi, my name is Malia Bailey and we are going over the fundamentals and basics of racquetball. Right now we are going to do some footwork drills that help you be quicker on the court and more efficient.

We are going to start with the Ladder drill. I would like to use the ladder for quickness of your feet and get into the position and being ready. One of the exercises that I like to use is the in and out drill with the ladder. As you can see one foot goes in, the other one goes in each square and they go out. Very quickly, you do this as quickly as you can. The more you do it, the quicker you get.

We also like the Slalom exercise. Its like skiing almost and you, kind of, jump from square to square using each foot and each square. Again, do this as quickly as possible. Another one I like to do is the high knee and do that as quickly as possible. This will just help you with the speed on the court. The other thing I like to do are squats. Squats really build your legs and you need that power in your legs to be explosive on the court because they should know racquetball is a game of angles as well. You need to be able to attack the ball and be able to change directions quickly. We do this by using our legs. The other thing I like to do are Lunges.

You can do Lunges a couple of different ways. You can do lunges with or without weights. You can do walking lunges and crossover lunges and circle lunges. When you are on the racquetball court, a lot of times you don't have that much time to take two or three steps. So you want big long lunges and then have your legs strong enough to push you back into position. I also like to do suicide. Its one of favorites. There is a reason why they are called suicide because they almost kill you, but they do run you and its good for your Cardio as well.

When you start doing these exercises, you might want to try, say, three rounds each. That's what I do with my students and that's might be what you want to start with. As your energy level or your endurance gets up, you can do more or you can do them longer. We have just finished up doing footwork drills. Next, we will be talking about game plans and strategies.