Start into the Year 2018
The first half of the squash season is over, with many highlights to look back at. European Individual Championship in Nottingham, World Team’s Championship in Marseille, World Individual Championship in Manchester and many, many PSA Tournaments were some of them.
Finishing 10th at the European Individual Championship, runner-up at the Romanian Open and some great wins such as beating Pakistan’s number 1 at the World Team’s Championship were some really nice results for me.
Unfortunately I couldn’t qualify for the World Individual Championship at my ‘second home’ Manchester, but this is a part of the sport, having to accept bad times as well.
My next PSA tournament will take place in Mikkeli, Finland on the 1st February. This means that I can get some good training in to be in good shape for this 10.000 USD event.
As all my training blocks, I start with physical and psychological tests at the Diagnostic and Training Centre of Red Bull in Salzburg. Regular fitness tests help to keep track of my training progress and make sure that I stay fit during season as well, when there is little time to train while playing tournaments, league matches and other competition.
I was able to keep my fitness level and even improve in some areas compared to three months ago, so these were my best results ever! With this very positive information I worked out a training programme to peak on time in February.
Strength sessions, Ghosting sessions, practice Matches and hitting sessions will be my daily routine, twice a day, five to six days a week. In my spare time I will try to be on the ski slopes as much as possible, as I only live a couple of minutes away from Austria’s biggest ski resorts!
The biggest events for myself will be the Austrian Open on my own glasscourt in the EUROPARK shopping mall, the European Team Championship and of course aiming for my 12th Austrian National title.
To check out my progress and keep track of my results everyone can follow me on Facebook (Aqeel Rehman – legit), Instagram (aqeel.squash), or my homepage www.rehman.at
Wish me luck, thanks for any support!
