I love the game. Although I prefer to play with average skill players. Hit the ball hard, run around like crazy, hit and accidental kill shot once in a while.

I have played with guys can hit kill shots anytime they want and they never hit the ball so it goes over a foot off the ground. No fun. I prefer the three minute crazy volleys to that.

 

I love racquetball! I don't play much (I played in August with my brother up in Canada) but it's a blast. Great workout, a real challenge to play well (learning to smash instead of swing in a huge arc, especially), and pretty easy on the body overall (after the first few games).

I'm not to the point where I can kill it every time (nowhere close) so I'm with vader1 - average skill player, please.

 

Ya the guys at work here got me into it. great fun! but haven't played in a while..

 

While it is necessary to be able to hit a kill shot (while playing on that level), it is certainly not advanced strategy to simply hit low every time. Hell, I do that by myself (return 1ft high volleys) repeatedly. It takes combining that, and trying to make a hit that appears random in order to take your opponent off guard.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear that there are those of you who enjoy playing, too.
And yes, Saki, you're extremely right: don't turn around, unless you want a face (or other part) full of blue rubber.

 

It's actually not that great of a work-out compart to other racquet sports like tennis. I played tennis competitively in college and then had trouble finding decent competetion to play with so I moved on to racquetball. I played competitively there as well until I was offered a job teaching tennis again...i found out how out of shape I was and I was playing racquetball about 3 hours a day 5-6 days a week at the time. It's obviously better than nothing but make sure you wear eye protection...I didn't when I first started playing and it was a HUGE mistake.

 

Personally, I think the workout thing depends on how you play and who you play with. And yes, eye protection is absolutely necessary. I played with someone who nearly lost an eye.

 

Like I mentioned...I played competitively, went to states and regionals a couple of times and was playing 15-20 hours a week. When I started playing tennis again I got gassed pretty quickly...could barely finish a second set. I have also played squash and of the three racquetball is definitely the least taxing on the body.

 

A good racquetball player doesn't work nearly as hard as a bad one. You learn to time and place shots, as well as return without moving nearly so much. You learn to anticipate as opposed to react.

In tennis, you have a much larger area to cover. Even if you anticipate, you still have to cover more ground, period.

 

Right, my point was: "it depends on how you play." Apparently I need to clarify. I agree wholeheartedly with the lot of you in regards to a game, but as I noted in my first post, I'm speaking mostly about practicing in regards to "workout level." And when you are trying to work on endurance and get excercise, then practicing (on your own) can be a great workout.

 

raquetball moves closer to being a hand/eye coordination skill. you don't have to cover as much ground as in tennis, but you have to be able to react more quickly. it's definitely at least as taxing on the leg muscles as tennis, though maybe not as much cardio-wise.