Thread: Racquetball for agility?

Originally Posted by dropball1

Yes, I would see some great benefit. I taught a little racquetball and the agility, starting and stopping, hand eye and waiting on the ball and deciding when to attack it should all help.

.....as long as you play with the racket in your glove hand.... ;-)

Table tennis (aka ping pong to the masses) is another excellent side activity (and doesn't require a gym membership). Went to college w/ a future professional hockey goalie - he'd call my apt. asking for my Chinese roomie to come out and play several hours before a game to relax and sharpen his reflexes. FWIW - said roomie and I ruled the campus in doubles - both intramurals and beer pong!

Originally Posted by Greenmonsters

Table tennis (aka ping pong to the masses) is another excellent side activity (and doesn't require a gym membership). Went to college w/ a future professional hockey goalie - he'd call my apt. asking for my Chinese roomie to come out and play several hours before a game to relax and sharpen his reflexes. FWIW - said roomie and I ruled the campus in doubles - both intramurals and beer pong!

I can't agree with this more. Ping pong, in my opinion is the best ( and fun ) way to learn eye to hand quardination. It will for sure sharpen your reflexes. As teens and young 20's we would play all night long, betting all we had.

GM if your ever around Memphis we shall step into the man cave upstairs and dual it out on the tennis table. Let me warn you my nick name growing up was "King Kong Pong". If that ends in a tie we will then have a winner take all on billiards. Bring your wallet.

Racquetball is a terrific way to improve the first step, master hand-eye coordination and slow the game down.

In the 90’s Egan Inoue, a Hawaiian pro racquetball player, was reputed to have a serve of 170+ MPH. The top women would probably hit 30 MPH slower. Women's "A" players hit the ball at roughly 100 MPH. Once you see a little blue ball at speeds like that, the ball absolutely slows down on the baseball and softball field. Rec and local club players are nowhere near that speed.

There are some significant benefits. But there some of problems with using racquetball as a training aid for softball:

- Racquetball absolutely teaches aggressiveness, leverage and the correct sequence to hit the ball with any authority. But that is a lot of activity on the arm. If the softball player is seriously pursuing pitching or catching, I would be concerned with the wear on the arm and the accumulated fatigue. Which is too bad, because if there was ever a game that rewards internal rotation, this is it. The difference between pushing the racquet through the zone and snapping the racquet through the zone with the appropriate arm whip is the difference between throwing a bullet and shooting a bullet.
- If your softball player can play at a reasonable level, you can indeed see benefits. If she is a novice and is just learning the game it will be difficult to see those benefits. Not to mention that miss-hits are tough on the arm.

Some benefits:
- If your swing is out of sequence, the feedback is immediate. You will hear the pitch of the ball-strike is not right and the ball will not move at the pace of the better players you will observe.
- Seeing a ball coming at you at high speeds will slow the softball game down.
- Racquetball rewards the first step and anticipation. Some of the best racquetball players I have known were third basemen.

I was a regular racquetball player up until last year when my job situation at the time forced me to stop. Well, that and the fact that the only guy left to play at work was in his late 30s to my 55 at the time, and he was a marathon runner so in way better shape than me. It just wasn't fun after a while because I just couldn't keep up.

It's definitely a good workout and will get you seeing the ball better. Agree on first step explosiveness. And if you play three games, you learn to push through the fatigue pretty quickly too. Just watch out for the rolled ankles and face plants into the wall. They can be killers, especially if you injure easily.

Originally Posted by GOINGDEEP

I can't agree with this more. Ping pong, in my opinion is the best ( and fun ) way to learn eye to hand quardination. It will for sure sharpen your reflexes. As teens and young 20's we would play all night long, betting all we had.

GM if your ever around Memphis we shall step into the man cave upstairs and dual it out on the tennis table. Let me warn you my nick name growing up was "King Kong Pong". If that ends in a tie we will then have a winner take all on billiards. Bring your wallet.

GD, mi casa es su casa if you're ever up New England way. Fair warnings first, although I never masterd the penholder style, another of my roommates was India(n) and I had my own custom paddle (at least until my son borrowed it and let the dog eat it). My banker says billiards is a definite no go, so in the event of a tie, I propose we duke it out by second-guessing the coaches, announcers, umpires, official scorers, gate attendants and whoever else gets TV time at next year's WCWS. We'll do it on-line here and let the DFP user kingdom diplomatically vote to determine that I am the clear winner.