A Day in the Life of Victor Crouin

In the build-up to March’s Canary Wharf Classic, we spent 24 hours filming with French No.1 Victor Crouin in his home city of Toulon.

Below, Victor explains how he spent a day preparing for the upcoming squash tournament. You can also watch A Day With Victor Crouin on SQUASHTV.

Morning Routine 

Hello, Bonjour, my name is Victor Crouin. I’m a professional squash player. At the time of filming, I had just achieved my highest world ranking of World No.8. 

The first thing I do every morning is take a cold shower. It’s something I’ve started doing quite recently. It was tough at first, but you just get used to it and I find that I feel wide awake afterwards and in a really good headspace for the day. 

Since graduating from college and becoming a full-time professional, I’ve started taking some supplements every morning that help with brain function. I’m honestly not sure how much of an effect it has, but it can’t hurt to try. I start each day between 7am-8am depending on when my first training session is scheduled. Ideally, I like to have two to three hours to wake up.

While I was in the shower, my dad was busy getting breakfast started. I have a very interesting relationship with my dad as he’s also my full-time squash coach. It has been the case since I was a junior player. We’re very close, which has been a positive, but as you can imagine, it has its fair share of challenges too.

Since COVID, my dad has gotten really into his cooking and therefore he has implicitly relegated me to kitchen assistant when it comes to mealtime. He’s actually becoming really creative when it comes to preparing meals. 

This morning I’m having a combination of egg and avocado on toast, a pressed orange and grapefruit juice and some fresh fruit and tea.

I’ve been on tour for a few years now, staying in hotels and going to restaurants every day. So, one of the things that brings me back down to earth is doing the dishes. When spending life on the road, you tend to forget about the simple everyday tasks. 

Stretching

We’re really fortunate to have a good-sized balcony here that overlooks Toulon. And as we’re filming in March, it’s a perfect morning for some outdoor stretches. 

As a squash player, I think that one of my main attributes is speed around the court. I’m always looking to move faster and more efficiently. So having a consistent, effective mobility routine is crucial in helping me stay mobile and injury-free.

While I was stretching my dad was busy working on the plan for this morning’s training session. Prior to becoming my squash coach, he was a planning engineer on architecture construction projects, which has really shaped his approach to coaching and his approach to planning. It is all meticulous and it’s something I’ve definitely picked up my own personality traits. 

Warm-up

It’s now time to head to the local squash courts. 

I’m training with my sparring partner from the 11th grade, Thomas, who’s fighting his way through the junior rankings. While he might not push me to the same level as a full-time professional, he’s super passionate and determined to get better. And for me, that’s what’s most important. 

My dad’s meticulous nature comes into play again. He sweeps the court before we train. The centre where I train regularly hosts training for disadvantaged and disabled children, which is fantastic, but the courts can sometimes get a little worse for wear afterwards.

We take the warm-up seriously, but my dad makes it fun and challenging too.

We do a range of movements to get our bodies ready. At the same time, we also do some fun exercises that challenge both our legs and our brains.

I’m always fascinated about how my dad comes up with new exercises every day. So it’s not always the same routine, it’s just new exercises. 

Having my dad as my coach is a fantastic way to push me outside my comfort zone – something I struggle to do on my own. He knows me almost better than I know myself. He can therefore push my body to its limits without breaking it down. It’s all about getting the balance right. 

Injuring yourself while training is the worst thing that can happen. But at the same time, I need to make sure I’m using all my available time to the fullest.

Training 

After our warm-up, it’s time to begin our squash practice. 

I did some basic straight drives and boast drills with targets on the floor. Usually, I try to put conditions on myself where I just have one small target and he’s [Crouin’s training partner] got a bigger one. 

We usually try to stop the rally whenever we get the ball out of that zone. 

I only have a week in between my two tournaments – the Squash On Fire and Canary Wharf – so it’s definitely tailored around getting in shape and ready for that tournament and kind of just correcting a few of the tactical and technical errors from the last two or three weeks. But nothing big, nothing fundamental. 

We finished our session with a full-court rally, but to make this different, my dad started the rally by feeding a weaker lob shot, and we take turns attacking the nick on the first shot.

Lunch 

It’s time to head for some lunch. 

So this is another one of my favourite meals. It’s simple, tastes amazing, and it’s quite healthy. 

It’s a bed of salad with some fried bacon and onions, along with some fresh garlic, toasted baguette with goat’s cheese on top. 

Analysis

Like my dad, I think I’m wired to be very analytical. After every training session, every month or every tournament, I keep a detailed journal of how I played and how I conducted myself. I score myself on my performance and how I felt physically and mentally. Also whether I got my tactics right, and how I felt in terms of skill level, as well as how much I enjoyed myself. 

I then send my journal over to my dad, who has a chance to add to these comments. 

This is a really good way of working for us and it helps keep our coaching and parent relationship separate. It’s often hard to know whether I’m speaking to my dad or my coach, especially when things get emotional. So having this approach helps draw a clear line between the two. 

This isn’t a new thing though, I’ve been following the same approach ever since I started taking squash seriously. Being able to look back on my journey in squash is both really sentimental and practical. 

If I have an off day or an off week, for example, I can look through my notes and try to see if there are any trends that might explain why I felt a certain way. 

Education

By now you’ve probably spotted the Harvard logo on the back of my jacket. 

For me, this is a huge part of my life and like a number of other players out on tour, I wear the logo with pride. Last year I graduated in economics and was presented with the choice of whether to start a career or to go into professional squash. This was a huge decision for me as all of my family come from a very traditional, career-focused background. 

For me, playing squash is where I truly find fulfilment in life and being able to live through my passion was something I couldn’t pass on. There are times when I doubt myself, but looking back through all my logs and all my matches and seeing how far I’ve come is a reminder to keep on pressing on. 

Afternoon

Usually at this point I’d be going for my second hit of the day, but my dad had come down with a pretty bad cold, and given the nice weather, I thought I’d show our cameraman one of my favourite hikes.

It’s something I find really important to incorporate into my routine. I spend so much of my time on the squash court, so I’m happy to get away from this environment during the weekends. 

To me, it is both my recovery whilst also keeping me energised and motivated.

Dinner

It’s been a full-on day today, so it’s time to head for some dinner. 

We’re going to a restaurant that I’ve discovered fairly recently that has quickly become one of my favourite places to go. It serves a mixture of classic French and Italian dishes and the food tastes amazing. 

So obviously we don’t go out for dinner every night, I’m not wealthy enough, but we’ve got a roasted duck with mushroom sauce and some roast potatoes as well. 

I think my two things with food are to just eat healthy and have fun with it. I think we can often get stuck as professionals on just restricting ourselves to certain foods and, obviously, we need opportunity to take on carbs or vegetables. 

This is all part of just eating healthily in my opinion and personally I really enjoy going out for dinner and making dishes and getting creative with them. So it’s important just to just have fun with it as well and not to think of food as just fuel, but also as something to appreciate.

Evening Routine 

We’re now back up in my apartment.

I like to relax, chill out and decompress. At this point I’ll usually call my girlfriend. We met at Harvard and she’s still studying there. If she’s busy, I often take this time to catch up on things I might have missed. I love reading newsletters from economists, both to stay up to date with the latest academic research and to understand the events unfolding right now around the world. 

Thank you guys for spending the day with me. See you guys at the next event. Goodbye and good night.

Watch A Day With Victor Crouin now on SQUASHTV.