7 Things Pro Pickleball Players DO That You DON'T

When you watch pro pickleball versus amateur pickleball, there's some pretty big differences you'll see with technique and strategy. So in this video, we're gonna break down seven things that you can do to look more and play more like a pro. The first thing you'll notice when you compare amateurs to pro players is there's a huge difference in their posture and their footwork, specifically in how low they're staying throughout the point. So there's some key parts of the court and parts of the point where you want to be extra low during so that you have the best chance of hitting a good shot. So one of these key sections of the court and arguably the most important is the transition zone. I see so many amateurs when they're coming from the back of the court, going to the kitchen, they're standing straight up, they're not in a good position to react. But when you watch pros, they're always looking something like this. They're super low, they have their paddle low, and they're in a good position to react. So an analogy I say is that when you're in this section of the court, you want to pretend like there's a ceiling above you, and if you stand up, you're gonna hit your head on it. Because when you're here, staying low is the best position to be in to react like this. So if you see Kennedy do some examples here, she's never standing straight up, she gets into the wide base. So when I'm moving her, she's in a good position to react and she can hit good resets. When you're in the transition zone, you really want to make sure you're not doing anything too crazy with your footwork. You're really focusing on the intensity of your legs and kind of side lunging to the ball. So it's not just the height that you're standing, it's also the way that you're using the footwork. Pros are very efficient with their footwork in the transition zone. I see a lot of amateurs that are taking way too many steps. So let's see how that looks, Kennedy. They're just taking way too many steps, they're doing crossover steps, and it makes them off balance in the transition zone. With pros, you never see this. So the most important time to stay low is definitely when you're in the transition zone, but another important time is right after you hit your serve. So when I serve and I'm getting ready for my third shot, I want to be ready in case I have to move a certain direction after my opponent hits the return. If I hit my serve and I'm just standing straight up, there's a good chance I could get taken off guard and not be on balance to hit my third shot. I see way too many players nonchalant before their third shots, but you have to remember, the third shot's pretty challenging to hit good every time, especially when you're hitting a drop. So you want to make sure that after you hit your serve, you get in the routine of getting low and preparing for the third shot with good footwork so that you routinely are hitting good thirds and you can move forward. The next time you need to think about staying low is when you're at the kitchen. Because up here, when you're in these dink rallies where your opponent's moving you side to side, just like when you're in the transition zone, a lot of the time you need to take these big lunging steps. And if you're coming from a straight up position, it's a lot less efficient than if you're doing it from an already low position. It also helps in hands battles where you're going fast just to be a little bit lower in case you need to react side to side there too. So being low at the kitchen is always better. But remember, when you're at the kitchen, you're not going to be quite as low as when you're in the transition zone. So you don't need to be like super low like this. Just have a slightly wider base than your shoulders, slightly bent knees, and of course have a good ready position, and you'll be set. The next difference you'll see when you compare amateur players to pro players has to do with fast hands. Specifically, whether or not they jump and how still they keep their head. So if you've never played pickleball or you're just getting into it, the natural reaction to someone firing the ball at you is to jump like I just did there. Because it's a little bit scary, it's a little bit startling. But when you watch a pro and they get a ball fired at them, they keep their head very still, level, and they don't jump. Because when you jump, it sort of takes you off of the ball and it's hard to react to where the ball is going. So if you're in hands battles and you're ever out the kitchen, you need to train yourself to not have that reaction of jumping. And a good rule of thumb too is that whenever you're at the kitchen, you want to keep your head very still so you're ready for the fast balls that come at you. Because if your head's bobbing around and you're all over the place, it's just going to be tougher to react. So keep your head still, don't jump. This is going to be an automatic way to have faster reactions. A good rule of thumb is that when you're up at the kitchen, you want to pretend like you have a glass of water on your head. So if I'm doing a good job keeping my head level, the glass will stay full. If I'm popping up and doing all the things I shouldn't be doing, like jumping, the glass is going to spill. This is a good little trick you can use so that you stay with your head level at the kitchen and you react a lot faster in hands battles, you'll be better on dinks, and you'll just be ready for whatever your opponent throws at you. The next thing pros do differently than amateurs has to do with the technique of their volleys. So a lot of time when I watch amateurs hitting their volleys, it looks something like this. They're just doing crazy stuff, very elaborate with their technique. They're not doing their volleys the same way every single time. So there's big backswings, big follow throughs. They hit one forehand like this, the next forehand like this. With pros, it looks like this. They do things the same way every single time and their volleys are generally hit in the simplest possible way, meaning they literally just take it back, forward with a compact motion. There's no backswing, no windup, no anything. They have a very simple stroke. And what that does is it makes you a lot faster. And one thing I like to do to make sure I keep my volleys compact is I like to make sure that whenever I'm up at the kitchen, I'm not taking my paddle behind the kitchen line. And that way, I make sure I don't take too big of a backswing and everything's compact. So all you need to remember to look like a pro on your volleys is that you need to stay compact and you want to do the volleys the same way every single time so that you stay consistent. And if you do this, I guarantee you'll do way better in your hands battles. The next thing you see pros doing super often that I almost never see rec players doing is using a backhand flick. So all pros are masters of the backhand flick volley, which looks like that. And the reason the backhand flick is so important is because at high levels, your opponent's always going to try to be dropping the ball in the kitchen. So it's really common that you're reaching like this. And this is the best way to attack when your opponent's using one of these shots. And the reason the backhand flick is probably more important than the forehand flick or the forehand roll is because remember, your backhand covers your body. So with a backhand flick, you can really cover most of the shots that are coming at this angle because you're gonna be covering a majority of your body with it. In terms of technique, there's a slight extension from the elbow, but most of the power comes from the wrist. So there's really a lot of wrist action and that's bringing the paddle up, but it's also bringing the paddle forward like this a little bit too. Put that together and you get the backhand flick. And remember, the best time to use this shot is whenever your opponent is going soft into the kitchen and you really have to reach. So that could be on a drop, could be off of a dink or a reset. Now, as you can see, Kennedy's doing this like a pro would be doing it. She gets a lot of power and spin, puts the ball right at my feet, which is way better than what an amateur would do. A lot of the time an amateur will just reach, sort of hit a slow volley like that, or even worse, they'll let the ball bounce or back up and they won't attack at all. This is really just giving you an extra option because it's so common that players are gonna be hitting these shots that are landing low like that. So it really gives you that extra ability to attack from a worse position. Real quick guys, just wanted to announce we just launched our new line of paddles, the Turbo Series. And what makes these super special is that after you use code Turbo, they're only $99. And the quality of these is up there with anything on the market, even the paddles that are like $250. So if you want top-notch performance, but you don't wanna spend $250, head to our site now and grab yours. The next thing you see pros doing differently than rec players is they make use of way more ATPs. So ATP stand for around the post. Whenever you have a shot outside of the post, where you can draw a line from your paddle to the sideline around the post, you should go for the ATP because it's actually a very effective shot. So I think a lot of rec players think the ATP is harder to use than it actually is, but it happens pretty often. All you have to do is take a little bit of a shuffle step out and then obviously aim around the post. The other thing I see rec players doing wrong is they don't hit the ball low enough. So if you hit the ATP too high, sort of defeats the purpose of using it because your opponent can attack and you're actually very out of position. So the point of hitting it around the post is that you can hit it really low and really hard. If I do that, you'll see it's pretty much impossible for her to get that shot back. So start using more ATPs, aim low on them, go hard, give it a little bit of practice and I guarantee it'll start working for you. So another thing that pros do different than rec players is when they speed the ball up, they go for very specific targets. With rec players, I see a lot of players that just hit it really hard, but you can tell they don't really have a good idea of where they're going. So that looks something like this. A lot of the time, if you go right at your opponent's backhand or at their body, they have a super prepared counter because so many players wait with their paddle on their backhand anyways. So if you speed up at bad locations like this, there's a good chance you get burned like I just did there. So the three types of speed ups that you need to know that pros use are the cross body speed up, the chicken wing speed up and the speed up towards a gap in the court. So looking at the cross body speed up, the reason this one works so well is because a lot of the time your opponent's sitting on the other side and they're just not ready for you to go across their body like that. Another reason why it's good is because you can make use of the triangle method, which says that when you hit a ball across your opponent's body, it's a lot more likely it's gonna go to the other side of your body on the next shot. So you can sit there and hit a ball if they get it back. So what that looks like is this. Because I speed up across her body, she hits it towards my left side, I'm ready for the backhand and I can end the point in a combo. With the chicken wing speed up, this one's really good because you can really just jam your opponents because in that area from the right hip to the right shoulder, it's just sort of hard to hit a shot. With a continental grip, there's not really like a right shot that you should use there. So to hit it, you kind of have to lean away. And because of that, it becomes a little bit challenging to react to a speed up. So the chicken wing is kind of the gold standard best ball to hit a speed up if you're not really sure. So I'd say most speed ups should go there. Crossbody is really good too. But the last one is if you see a gap. So if you see your opponent shifted towards the middle and there's a gap down the line, you can use a speed up right down the line. And these can work just because your opponent might not be able to move quickly enough to get them back. Another time, probably the most common time you'll see a gap speed up is if your opponent is shifted towards the side of the court or your opponent's partner is shifted towards the side of the court. Obviously that leaves a nice gap right down the middle that you can go for. This is also one of the most common speed ups you should use too. Just make sure whenever you're going for a speed up, you have a target like this. Pros always have a target. A lot of the time, rec players don't. So have a target and you're gonna have way more success when you do this. The next thing I always see pros do, but I rarely see rec players do is closing the gap in the middle, especially from the left side. So one instance you see this is where your opponent just hit their return and they're running in. Maybe your opponent's about to hit them a third shot. Sometimes they'll float it more towards the middle and maybe they're not all the way in yet, but you'll see the player at the net scooch over, pick this off out of the air and hit it very aggressively. I always see pros, the one player scoots over and becomes aggressive from the middle because maybe the opponent's hit a shot towards their opponent that was gonna land a little farther back, but for this guy, they can actually be aggressive with it. So you can do this when your partner hits the return. You can also do this in a dinking situation. Sometimes the player in front of you will hit a dink to your opponent's inside leg or maybe it floated up a little bit. You can scooch over and you can be aggressive from this position too. So a lot of the time it's okay to creep onto your partner's side a little bit if you have a better opportunity than them. Don't feel bad about this. The pros do it all the time and it's super effective. Thanks so much for watching guys. If you wanna watch another video where me and Kennedy give you some of our best tips, click this.