The Perfect 5-Minute Pickleball Warm up | Prepare Well for Every Match

All right, here's the scenario. Your match gets called at a tournament. You only have five minutes to warm up. What do you do? What do you need to work on to get prepared for that match? Today, in this video, that's what we're going to go over. Let's get right into it. All right, so first things first, if you have a very limited amount of time, you really want to be efficient with every drill, every ball you hit. So even though this is everything you can do in five minutes, we are going to kind of go into depth of all the things you can do. So obviously, it's going to be a longer than a five minute video. But the first thing that we're going to do, Kaden, is we're going to take dinks at the non-boys online. Obviously, super important part of the game, and it's just a good place to start. All right, so for me, Kaden, I don't know what you're focusing on, but as soon as I drop the ball, my footwork has to be going, creating space. And as higher level players, right, focusing on topspin, underspin, every shot that you're going to be actually hitting in a game. Yeah, absolutely. My biggest thing is making sure I'm working on creating some offensive dinks, right? Making sure I'm using my topspin, using my backspin, not just allowing myself to get defensive like we can in matches, right? When we get tight, easiest thing to do is kind of just let the ball go over the net, but we still need to be working our angles, working our topspin, working our backspin, right? And even if we need to, right, if we want to work on a little bit of cross-court and our partners or our opponents are already there, I can step a little bit off this court and we can still kind of work this cross-court angle, even though our opponents are using the other half of our court. Now we can switch that up. Yeah, so like again, if your opponents are warming up on the other side, we can still kind of get some kind of ideal or realistic cross-court dinkage kind of like this going off the court. Yep. All right. Okay, anything else you want to mention here, Kaden, when we're warming up dinks first? No, just really making sure that, like you said, the footwork, right? Footwork in our dinks, not allowing ourselves to just get stuck in mud here at this kitchen line, right? If you need to work on that shuffle, this is the perfect time to do it, making sure that you're being offensive up here at the kitchen line with these dinks. Okay. All right, and then directly from here, we are going to go to volleys. Yep. Yeah, Kaden, obviously when you are at the non-volley zone, two shots, most important shots, it's going to be dink and volleys. So we're going to get right in. And again, I like to start more controlled and then kind of build it up over time. What's your thought process on that? 1000%. Start it slow, start it controlled. Make sure you're hitting these volleys back to your opponent, into the spots that you guys want. And then as you guys start to get a little bit more comfortable, then you can start to pick up the pace. My biggest thing, I'm looking to keep my hands in front, make sure I'm using both my backhand and forehand instead of just getting used to this chicken wing spot. I want to be able to open up to the forehand. So I'm using my slide. Good. And of course, eventually trying to win these points on the volleys. Here we go. Oh, good chicken wing right there. Uh-huh, reset. Oh, chicken wing. Not, oh, okay. Spoke a little too soon there. Yeah, so yeah, really important thing for me, again, hitting realistic volleys. Obviously we're going to start kind of compact, nice and kind of cooperative. But as you pick it up, we want to start to move those targets around, force that dominant side hip, maybe that non-dominant side hip, the high shoulder up here. Force different spots so that we're actually getting to those balls and practicing. Correct. Right. Do you want to take your pickleball game to new heights? Join us for our five-day VIP intensives here in sunny Phoenix, Arizona. If you're struggling to improve your game and maybe you feel like you've plateaued, I've specifically designed this training program for you. This exclusive training will include over 25 hours of instruction, a personalized written action plan, and also an in-house round-robin tournament designed to get you to play your best game under pressure situations. So don't miss out on this opportunity. Make sure you click on the link in the description below. Pack your bags and I'll see you on the court. Okay, so this next drill, we're going to take turns attacking each other. If you are not the one attacking, typically you're going to be either countering or resetting. But in this case, when we're attacking, we're talking more about the speed up, right? So looking to attack balls off the bounce or maybe a lower dink that you would try and work and use in a game. So we'll take turns. Jordan's going to attack me first and then we'll switch roles. Yeah, here we go. Nice spot. Okay, you. Now I'm going to attack you. Oh, it's in baby. All right, here we go. Here we go. I'm going to switch it up again. Here we go. Yep, back to you. Ooh, good dink. Oh God, that's high. Good. Works. Okay, and you. Here we go. That's a good dink. I'm going to really try and work. Yeah. All right, last couple here, Caden. And again, I think it's really important here, you know, not just working on a reset, so I mean really working on countering. Yeah. So if the player is attacking, working on countering first because we have to have that counter attack mentality and not just practice our resets because we're going to practice our resets in a bit. Yep. All right, last few here, Caden. Good. Ooh. Oh, last one. Here we go. You. Ooh. That's a good ball. Okay. All right, so now that we played some points up at the kitchen line, dinks, volleys with speed ups and counters, now we're going to head back into the transition zone. Okay? So Caden's back there, kind of right in the middle. And again, starting out a little bit cooperative. I like to give him balls that he could volley, and then I'm going to start to make it more tougher and move it around. Here we go. Good. Caden, anything you're thinking here when you're doing resets right now? Yeah, just trying to stay based and balanced. Notice my wider stance. I really want to kind of put this ball right at my opponent's feet. So I'm not thinking to myself in the kitchen here. I'm thinking I want to push him back or make him hit a ball in the air that's a little bit lower at your knees. And then the biggest thing is I'm going to hit most of my resets in backhand, but I do want to make sure I am hitting some resets on the forehand side, even though it's going to be a little bit tougher and a little bit more awkward. Yeah, so because of that, I'm going to make sure that I send some to Caden's dominant side. Yeah. Just like this one. All right, look at that. Already a little bit high. Getting myself in a little bit of trouble. Good. Trouble's my middle name though. That's okay. Here we go. Now I'll play it out. I'm all right. I'm in a good place. Oh yeah. Okay. All right, so now we'll switch, obviously, right? So I need some work in the transition as well. So again, same thing for me, wide base, trying to get that ball either to bounce or low contact. Yep. All right. Nice. Okay. Here we go, Caden. A couple more here. All right. So for me too, because I've started to adapt a two-handed reset into my game, I'm trying to also alternate and use both as well here. So sometimes I might dig it out like that, two like that, or just go one there. Yep. Good ball. Thanks. It's also important to note that right now, Jordan's working on his resets. And yes, that is the main kind of priority of this goal, but I'm also working on fourths and sixth shots right here. So working on applying pressure while they're moving up to the kitchen line. So good drill for both of us. Really making sure we're practicing all the shots that we're going to be using in pickleball. Oh yeah. Ow. That felt good. All right. So once I've worked on my resets, I'm going to bring it back here to the baseline and focus on my third shots. Now, not just my drops and not just my drives, but I'm going to be working on both. And part of, you know, working on both is also working on my decision-making. So if I get a slower, higher ball, maybe I'll look to drive. If I'm getting something with a little bit more pace and a little bit lower, I might look to drop. All right. So mix it up, make the right decision. So when it comes to gameplay, you know exactly what you need to do. Nice. Oh, oh, that's high. Don't matter. Should've earned you that. Ooh. Nice. Nice, Kaden. Ooh. Back line. Oh God. No, no, no, no, no, no. Winner. Oh shoot. All right. So that was obviously just one rally there. Kaden is doing a good job. Again, practicing both drives and drops, depending on with the ball, trying to be really consistent. And as you're up there and as Kaden's up there right now, really practicing as much, creating as much offense as you can, right? He's working on his fourths and possibly his sixth shots. So trying to create space off the bounce when necessary and out of the air rolling, okay? Also, when you drive, I'm working on my punch volley as well. Nice. Ooh. Good one. Here we go. Oh, a little long. Here we go. Loosen that grip a little bit. Here we go, yeah. Nice. Wow. Home run. Okay. I'm strong. I had my vitamins today, guys. Here we go. Nice drop. Push it off that line. That's good. Ooh. Now, even in practice, when Jordan is hitting his drives, if he's hitting balls that I think are going out, I will let those go as well, only because I do want to practice it just like I would in a match. So if that ball's flying high, even though, yes, I do want to give them the reps, I want to train myself to remember that a lot of drives do go out and I have to let those go. Sure. And even for me too, I don't want to just be driving away and thinking my balls are going in. So I think that's really good both ways. Okay, last one, Ken. Ooh. Oh, that had a lot of spin on that. A lot of spin. All right. So now that we did some drilling and some reps at the net in transition and also doing our third shot drops and drives, now it's time to get into some serve and returns. Really important, obviously, especially if you're trying to create offense and put more and more in your serve and returns. Now, obviously, if you do not have the luxury of hitting cross court because you have other players on the court, you can always do it straight on. But in this case, we're going to go cross court. I'm going to be doing some serves and Caden is going to be practicing his returns. Great. Nice. All right, now we'll switch. Caden will do some serves. Nice. Miss it. Nice. Okay, last one, Caden. Okay, once you've done all those steps, if you do have a little bit more time, you can start to do a couple just skinny single points. Now, that last minute is usually dedicated to serves and return practice. But if you do have maybe an extra second, just playing a couple of skinny single points just to get yourself ready to go is super important and it's super great for you because at the end of the day, skinny singles is training your doubles game. All right, just like Caden said, this is the time to put everything together. So here we go from serve return to thirds to resets and drops. Here we go. Zeros. We're going to go to three here. Zero, zero. Heads up. Who am I saying heads up to? Your partner. No, stinking way. Zeros. Oh yeah. This is where you want to get all those service errors out of your system here. Get all the bad ones out of the way. Here we go. Little long, sir. All right. That's an easy one. Here we go. Here comes two. Uh-oh, that's also out, sir. Oh-ho, you know it. All right, 2-0, game point. Oh, that's dirty. And he can try and call it out. He knows, he knows. I'm going to do my little happy dance. One more, Caden. We'll go, what is it called? What do they call in the gambling world? Double or nothing, all right? I know you want those three. Okay. Double or nothing. Here we go. No, sir. Oh, that was close. All right. So when your ref shows up to your court, you typically will have five minutes to warm up. Depending on what match of the day it is, it might be shortened to three. So you guys can pick the drills that you guys really liked out of this. But in those five minutes, you can get all of this done. So make sure you guys really do use it. And it should help you out with kind of just getting rid of the bugs that are in your belly for that match. Gets rid of those nervous little butterflies in our system. And it should loosen us up and get us a little bit more game ready. So if you guys do feel like you are ever tight in a match, use this warmup. It should loosen your body up, get your heart racing, get you ready for that match. Yeah, no, really good, Caden. Again, I could not emphasize enough. Make sure you are playing the shots that you would normally play in a match. Don't do, you know, you're not going to warm up anything that's kind of out of yourself. You don't need to warm up your earnies. Yeah, so do what you would do in a match so that you can get those confident reps in. And then you'll just find yourself in a better place when you start the first point. All right, so thanks so much for watching. Make sure that you check out our other videos as well. Again, this is to prep for tournaments. We have a lot of instructional videos on it to improve your game as well. So check those out. We'll see you in the next video.