Backboard Drills Part 1

The wall never loses...

Pickleball progress is incremental, accomplished by finding a weakness and working to correct it...or even make it a strength. One method to make that happen is to drill. But drill partners are hard to find. There is, however, an exception. It is not too hard to find a wall. Having said that, what are some effective wall drills? We will let Joe Baker lead us through some in his video Backboard Wall Drills for Pickleball.

Before getting into the drills, Joe makes some great points worth highlighting:

1. To improve in almost any sport, you must increase practice time rather than playing time.
2. When hitting against a wall, you will hit 7-10 times more balls per minute than playing a doubles game.
3. You can focus on specific shots repetitively.

Drills for Beginners

Forehand and Backhand Groundstroke

Stand about 6 feet from the wall and hit the ball softly, hit up on the ball,and hit high on the wall. Allow the ball to bounce before hitting it. As your skill improves, move farther from the wall and hit the ball lower and harder.

Serves

Place a piece of painters tape at 36" on the wall and practice hitting serves over the tape for both direction and height.

Volleys

Volley drills are similar to groundstroke drills except that you should not allow the ball to bounce. After practicing both forehand and backhand volleys separately, alternate between them by steering the ball direction to make it deflect to the side of the next shot.

Be sure to use proper technique. Volleys should be hit with a "blocking" action in which the paddle track is linear and the paddle face remains the same through the shot. In other words, the volley is not a swing with paddle moving to the side directed by the wrist or elbow and the paddle face doe not rotate.

Drills for Intermediate Players

Drills for Advanced Players

The video that puts it all together follows.