Meet Amanda: Amanda Sobhy is a professional squash player, and the highest ranked American ever in the Professional Squash Association world rankings. Wow! She’s based in Boston and when she's not traveling the world to compete she serves as the assistant coach to the MIT Men’s squash team. If you follow Amanda you’ll see glass squash boxes set up in unique places around the world, post-match eats, and plenty of hard core action shots.
What does recovery mean to you?
Recovery means taking care of my mind, body, and soul. I play a grueling high impact sport that puts an immense amount of strain on my body. Combine that with the 9-10 months that I’m traveling around the world for tournaments, and I’m putting my body under a lot of stress. I’ve unfortunately learned through injuries that I only have one body and that I need to take care of it. I want to be able to play on the professional level for another 6-7 years, but I also want to be able to run around with my kids & stay active post career too. That’s why recovery has become extremely important.
Has recovery always been important to you?
Recovery has definitely become more of a priority as I’ve gotten older and more mature. I wish I was taught the importance of recovery when I was younger instead of just trying to push myself as hard as I could physically. Maybe I would’ve avoided a lot of injuries. I realized that it’s about the end game, not how hard you can push yourself on a day to day basis. That isn’t sustainable, or smart.
What do you recover from?
I recover from training, tournaments, travelling, burn out, mental exhaustion, injuries, illness, nights out. You name it!
How often do you recover?
Every day. However, the type of recovery & amount varies depending on where I’m at in the season, and how I’m feeling physically and mentally. I always incorporate one complete day of rest where I do absolutely nothing, and then two half days where my afternoon session will be active recovery based, so massage, physio treatment, yoga, swimming, sauna, etc. However, my apartment is basically a PT center nowadays, so everyday regardless of whether I am playing squash or not, I am foam rolling, stretching, using the recovery boots, using a HyperVolt, rolling on a lacrosse ball, taking a nap, sleeping more. As you can see, I take recovery very seriously haha
What are some ways that you like to recover?
Getting a massage, taking a yoga class at Yogaworks (I love their Hip Hop Yoga class), using the HyperVolt, using the Recovery Boots, seeing my physios, foam rolling, slathering myself with the Fixer, sitting on my couch watching TV and vegging out, taking a break from electronics, meditation, eating nourishing foods to help replenish my system, religiously taking The One, and drinking Beam Dream before bed so I can get a green recovery score on Whoop the next day hah
What do you wish you did more of to recover?
I wish I could see the physio every day. Honestly, my body could use endless manual massage therapy.
What do you wish other people did more of to recover?
For athletes, I wish they could properly warm up & cool down when they go and work out. For everyone, take care of your mind, mental health & happiness.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I had to learn the hard way by rupturing my Achilles at the age of 23 to know that I needed to take care of my body and focus on recovery. Don’t be like me and wait for a major injury to happen. Take care of your body now. It’s the only one you’ve got.
For more on Amanda feel free to follow her here.
