Squash is often called the world’s healthiest sport. In this episode of the Midlife Unfiltered podcast my squash coach Caleb Johnson joins me to unpack why. I also share my own return to the game after 30 years. Squash is on the rise again. Is it for you? The ball’s in your court 🙂 In this episode we talk about: * Caleb – as an Australian professional squash player, squash and fitness coach, runs a junior academy and squash advocate. * What makes squash different from most racquet sports - it has no net that separates players (for starters) and the benefits of that. * Racquet sports – in order of popularity * A brief history of squash and its evolution – the popular years and its rapid decline * Squash as an inclusion in the 2028 LA Olympics – and its rise again. * The health benefits of racquet sports in general * The physical health benefits of squash specifically: high calories burned (600–1,000 calories/hour), cardio challenging, muscles and bone benefits from multi-movements and multi-directional impacts – without the level of injury of other forms of sport * Tarek Momen vs. Rafael Nadal: a wild real-world comparison of match intensity – how tennis and squash compare. Not to knock tennis (we both love tennis) but to highlight the differences and impacts on health. * High intensity, ‘interval training’ nature of the sport PLUS endurance. * Brain and neural health benefits – squash is called ‘chess on legs’ – split second decision making and anticipation of where the ball is going next and where to place it. * Caleb shares a personal story about his friend with 7% vision who restored vision. through playing squash – he’s hoping it will be studied in the future. * Bone & Muscle health – how it helps our bones and muscles (and the study that shows this) * The ease to integrate it into life – doesn’t take up much time, can practice on your own (no balls to chase on the other side of the net!), build skills, play socially, competitively and it’s inexpensive. * Squash’s Olympic debut at LA 2028, and what it means for the sport’s future * The sport everyone’s Dad used to play – now it’s on the rise again. * How to start playing squash – as a new sport; * How to get back into squash again – the mind-body gap, and how to do it safely – people like me coming back to squash after 3 decades away (we are the risk group guys); warming up for as long as you play for starters. Here’s to squash in the 2028 in the LA Olympics and then 2032 in our home town of Brisbane, Australia. Get out there and start squashing in your local area. Unfortunately, our audio mucked up in the final minutes of our chat, sorry. Thank goodness for the subtitles! Find Caleb: Caleb Johnson Squash - Instagram, Facebook, and website Related Midlife Unfiltered episodes: * Bone Chatter: Strong Bones Are More Than Density * Re-Entry in Midlife: Who You Were Before Kids If you’d like a full deep-dive - history, global participation, the studies behind every claim, and more…keep reading below. The full story: I picked up a squash racquet when I was about 6. After 30 years since competing, I’m back playing squash for the health benefits I know it brings. Join Caleb Johnson, my fabulous squash coach and I as we explore this brilliant, unique racquet sport. It’s been called the #1 all-round healthiest sport and is often referred to as ‘chess on legs’. Meet Caleb. Caleb is a professional squash player and coach, currently ranked 311 in the world and #15 in Australia. He started playing at 14, (late by professional standards, where most competitors start at 4, 5, or 6) and became Australia’s #1 under-19 player by 18. He turned professional at 22. His goal…crack the top 100, and maybe, just maybe, an Olympic team spot in 2028. Alongside his own playing career, he coaches clients from age 5 to 85. Squash is different from other racquet sports. Unlike tennis, table tennis, pickleball, badminton, or padel, players share the exact same physical space. There’s no net that separates. That proximity is part of why relationships form so quickly in squash. That, and numerous other benefits. The numbers behind squash’s ‘healthiest all-round sport’ reputation. Racquet sports as a category are linked to notable longevity gains. Research suggests somewhere between roughly 4.7 and 9.7 years of added life expectancy; driven by a mix of social connection, cardiovascular demand and muscular endurance. But what sets squash apart within that category is its sheer continuous intensity. An hour of squash burns somewhere in the range of 600–1,000 calories (depend heavily on methodology, body weight and intensity). The sport that comes close is boxing and kickboxing, followed by jump rope and cross country skiing. The sports that match squash’s intensity all share the same signature. Minimal built-in rest, whole-body engagement and either explosive bursts or sustained continuous effort. Caleb shared stats on a first-round match played by Egyptian pro squash player Tarek Momen, lasting 97 minutes, versus Rafael Nadal’s tennis match, at 288 minutes. Nearly three times as long in duration yet statistically quite different. · Momen covered 5kms of ground versus Nadal’s 3.5km, · the ball was in play for 60% of Momen’s match compared to just 15% of Nadal’s. Squash delivers more physiological payoff in less little time giving great value for an hour of effort. Cardio, muscular, bone and calories burned. It’s basically interval training disguised as a game. Caleb described squash as mimicking high-intensity interval training - intense bursts within each rally, repeated across the match. And because it moves through multiple planes (forward, backward, diagonal, lateral), it puts squash in a rare category - high enough intensity to rival sports like rowing or boxing in calorie burn, without the single-plane repetitive strain that makes something like running so hard on ageing knees, or the contact-injury risk of combat sports. Squash is multi-directional, short bursts, lunges, steps and jumps, with endurance as the rallies typically keep the ball in play for much longer with gaps between points, less. With the chance of injury at the same level of intensity, lessened too (assuming the proper preparation pre-match as with all the other sports). Brain health. Because you’re tracking a small, fast-moving ball and making split-second tactical shot-play and positional decisions constantly (where do I need to be to return the shot, what shot to play, then immediately, where will my opponent send it back), there are significant neuroplasticity benefits. This is why squash is often referred to as ‘chess on legs.’ An extraordinary anecdote: vision restored. Caleb shared a story about a friend, Brian, who was legally blind in one eye and took up squash. He has restored functional vision in that eye over years of play, to the astonishment of his doctors. This is clearly as a remarkable personal anecdote, not an established or peer-reviewed medical finding. I haven’t been able to verify it against published research and neither has Caleb. We are not suggesting squash as vision treatment. It’s included here as a fascinating story, witnessed first hand by Caleb. Perhaps the research will turn up one day. A quick history of Squash and just how international this sport is. Squash has a longer pedigree than you may realise. It grew out of an older game called Royal (Real) Tennis then Rackets, which developed at England in the 1800’s. Students in Harrow School in the 1830s found that a punctured, ‘squashed’ rubber ball produced a softer, more strategic game than the hard-ball rackets they’d been playing and squash took shape from there. It spread through British public schools and then across the British Empire, which is why its heartlands today sit in places with strong historical ties to Britain: England, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Australia, and Malaysia, alongside the US and Canada. It’s global. Estimates put the number of players worldwide well into the tens of millions, and the professional tour, run by the PSA (Professional Squash Association), has over 1,200 registered players from more than 60 countries across five continents, competing in 250+ tournaments a year. Who’s dominating right now? It’s Egypt. Egyptian players currently hold the majority of world titles on both the men’s and women’s tours. Nour El Sherbini alone has won seven women’s world titles, and Egyptian men occupy most of the top of the current world rankings. It’s a changing of the guard with earlier eras belonging to Pakistan (Jahangir Khan’s staggering 555-match unbeaten streak in the 1980s, followed by Jansher Khan through the ‘90s) and to Australia, which has produced seven all-time world No. 1 players, including Geoff Hunt and Heather McKay, through its own golden era in the 1980s and early ‘90s. Australia’s story is a useful one for local listeners. Participation here has fallen a long way from its 1980s peak of roughly a million regular players to around 100,000 today. It is showing signs of a comeback, with new government funding and development programs tied directly to the Olympic announcement. Brisbane hosting a possible home Games in 2032 only adds to that momentum. With Caleb doing his bit to give it a healthy push along too. Where squash sits among racquet sports. Curious where Squash sits amongst other racquet sports? Here is the list from most popular (from a registered players perspective) to least: Tennis, table tennis, badminton, padel, squash, pickleball then racquetball. Questions you might be asking? Below are a couple of things that come up constantly when people are curious about squash: “Isn’t squash basically the same as racquetball?” No. They’re different sports, even though they look similar at a glance (both played solo or doubles, in an enclosed four-
