> > Tennis players have disproportionately large racquet arms. As do > squash > > players. A good argument could be made that the top squash players > are the > > fittest athletes on the planet. > > I was once told that the athletes with the highest VO2max are > biathletes. Makes sense, cross-country skiing needs a fair bit of > exertion and they have to get their heart rate down quickly to be > steady enough for the shooting.
Could be - I don't really know if it's possible to compare fitness across disciplines. I'd like to try cross-country skiing sometime, although it does look like hard work. What makes squash so difficult is the frequent oxygen debt from long bursts of high intensity activity - rallies can last 10 minutes (and still end on a let!), along with the need for fast recovery, great stamina - professional matches can last for hours - muscular endurance, flexibility and speed. It can be a killer though - about 2-3 years ago a guy at my club died of a heart attack in the changing room after a match; I think he was younger than I am now. Strangely when you watch professional squash they don't seem to be doing much - they make it look easy. But a couple of minutes into a game you're playing yourself you soon realise how tough it is. <http://www.jiba-jaba.com/Top-10-Awesome-Mens-Squash-Rallies.aspx> B -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
