About 4 months ago I decided I had had enough of sitting at my desk and barely leaving the house except to go shopping or go to church. Working from home definitely has its advantages, but in the last 2 years I gained about 20 pounds that were sitting around my mid-section and before I knew it, I was feeling very lazy.
Years ago I played racquetball with a friend once or twice and it was a blast. Although I was badly out of shape. I had very little stamina and was quickly out of breath. Besides, I don’t really know how to play the game.
So I decided that this is what I needed to do to help my health issue and get out of the house. So I signed up for membership at a local club and started playing about twice a week. Just before that I started playing tennis again (before I thought of racquetball) and was enjoying it. But to be honest, it’s not nearly as intense.
You burn about 600 calories after an hour of racquetball, which means you’re off to a great start on losing weight right there. I used to play twice a week for about one and a half hours. Then once in a while, I’d throw on some other day maybe in the evening or afternoon.
Luckily, I have several friends who wanted to start with me so we went and learned the rules (more on those in a minute). Luckily for us, a friend’s husband was on leave from the army and while he was here he decided to play with us. We found out in the first game that he actually played semi-professionally! that was amazing. He made us all look awesome, but nothing helped my game more than his tips and skills.
When you play against people who don’t know how to play, you get lazy and don’t push yourself. Anyway, let’s talk about the rules.
Basically you have two players (in singles) and a server will stand at mid court and hit the ball against the back wall. They must make the ball hit the back wall and bounce on the floor behind the serving line, but without hitting the front wall (the wall behind you).
The ball may hit one of the side walls, but that’s all. If the serve hits 3 walls, it is out. The server has to make two attempts to put the ball in play. Once the ball is in play, anything goes. Any wall is game and you can hit the ball as many walls as you want.
Here’s how you win. Once the ball hits the back wall, it can only bounce on the floor once before it must hit the back wall. So if the ball bounces once you hit the back wall, the other player must hit the back wall before the ball bounces again, which resets it.
So to win, just hit the ball so that the other player can’t reach it in time and it bounces on the floor more than once. It’s that simple, and not only is it a blast, but it’s a great way to get fit.
