Introduction:

The demands of pickleball are like no other, just like the demands of soccer are like no other. No sport demands the same types of training, that is the beauty in it all. High performing athletes in their respective sports may have similar attributes but really excel at very different things. A professional soccer player and professional pickleball player are nothing alike and to be a high performer in either sport takes two very different styles of training.

What it takes:

Understanding what it takes to be a professional pickleball player is the first step to understanding how to train like one. Pickleball is not a new sport but with its recent popularity and growth most people see it as a new thing. That being said, there isn’t much research done on pickleball players. You aren’t going to go on PubMed and find research articles with the subjects being pickleballers. That being considered, a lot of what I am bringing to you will be evidence based research. This is going to be based on the success that I have had with athletes and pickleball players and some of the things that I have learned along the way.

To really understand how to train a specific sport, you want to understand its demands. How long are the matches? How long are the rallies? What kind of movements are the athletes making?

Most of pickleball is played in the frontal plane or as most would understand, side to side (lateral) movement. This is a very side-to-side game, mainly because most of the game is played at the kitchen. When at the kitchen, you are moving laterally and have to get into positions that require strength and mobility; you have to be able to get low and dink an aggressive ball that comes over (think like Catherine Parenteau style). Working your paddle at the kitchen takes a good amount of core strength and stability as well. The ability to stay balanced and take balls out of the air really brings the core to the forefront.

Statistics:

Looking back at the 2019 US Open: the three doubles finals averaged 13.6 shots per rally in comparison to 2022 Georgia: the three doubles finals averaged 10.8 shots per rally. This small comparison gives us an understanding that the game is getting faster and faster. With the rallies getting shorter, the season getting longer, and the players getting more athletic; this just means more emphasis on speed, agility, and overall strength. Off-court training is important for all players regardless of age and skill. Players like Simone Jardim, considered an "older" player on tour, has stayed adamant with her off-court training which has resulted in a long and successful career.

Let’s really recap and think about how pickleball is played:

-         Rally Length: 10 – 20 seconds (10.8 shots/rally)

-         Games length: 15 – 30 minutes

-         Match Length: 35 – 90 minutes

-         Predominantly played in the frontal plane (lateral)

-         Reaction based sport (Hand-eye coordination)

Looking at these numbers and facts, we understand that the game is a lot of stop and go; short bouts of work followed by longer bouts of rest. You work for about 20 seconds and rest for roughly a minute for a rough total of 20 minutes then you repeat that 1-2 two times for a match.

Coming up:

So how do we train for this? How can we be specific with our training so that it is geared towards this model? Now that we know what the sport demands of us, we need to be able to understand the different components of training. This is going to be a series that covers the different styles of training, pickleball training best practices, and fitness level standards that I have created per age group. 

Over the course of the next few months we are going to do a deep dive into strength, conditioning, speed/power, hypertrophy, muscular endurance, anaerobic capacity, max heart rate, and steady state long duration training. We will discuss the importance of each fitness component for pickleball and how you should train to get the best results for pickleball!

Check out my other training resources here.