Racquetball

Move · High-Intensity · Movement, Typed Supps

There are four walls and no out of bounds, so a rally ends when someone cannot reach the ball, not when it leaves the court.

Stage by stage

Set-up (Eye protection and position): A hard ball arriving off any wall makes eyewear and court awareness a basic requirement.
During play (Rallies rarely break): The enclosed court keeps the ball live, so work-to-rest ratios stay high through a match.
Cutting and turning (Deceleration, not distance): Movement is short accelerations and hard stops rather than running, which is where the load sits.
Weeks later (Ankles and lateral elbow): Repeated cutting loads the lateral ankle, and high-volume forearm work irritates the lateral elbow.

Muscles trained

Primary: shoulders, forearms, heart, lungs
Secondary: calves, quads

Intensity

7 METs (Racquetball, general (Taylor Code 470)).

Time to effect

Weeks: Reading angles off the front wall and side walls, and reacting to the ball's unpredictable bounce, improves noticeably within the first few weeks of regular play.
Months: The repeated-sprint conditioning to chase down kill shots for a full match, and forearm endurance for a consistently hard swing, typically build over one to two months.

Related supplements

Common myth

"Racquetball is low-impact because the court is small, so there's not much running involved." In reality: Because the enclosed court keeps the ball in play, studies of recreational racquetball routinely show heart rates in the vigorous-intensity range for most of a match, with total movement and direction changes per minute comparable to or exceeding squash.