Offensive Lob Drill

Getting the fundamentals right...

Our regular Tuesday feature of the Jordan Briones Primetime series continues with his video Ultimate Offensive Lob Drill | Pickleball. In this video, Jordan shows how to practice the offensive lob from the NVZ line.

This shot is highly effective as a surprise off of a dinking rally. As Prem Carnot said in my post Offensive Lob from the NVZ Line:

Hit the Stealthy, Dink-in-Disguise Lob ShotThis is when you & your opponents have gotten into a dinking match and they are getting predictable.  Wait ’til the moment when they are leaning a little too far forward, or getting a little slow moving back to the ready position.  Then, using the exact same motion you would have used to hit a dink,  give the ball some extra loft, and have it go well over their heads into a beautiful lob, which they can’t get back for because they were too far committed to a dink.

But it is effective only if gets over the opponents and lands in the back of the court. Jordan's video shows a drill to practice the lob. The first thing to do is set up the target zone. Jordan puts a couple of paddles about 4' from the baseline but tape or any method of demarcation would work.

The drill requires 2 players - one feeder and one driller, both positioned at the NVZ line on opposite sides of the net. The feeder raises their paddle over their head to set a target over which the driller practices the lob.

The feeder uses their other hand to "toss" a dink to the driller in order to practice the lob.

Jordan does not talk about lob technique in this video, though. It might be helpful to review Deb Harrison's technique discussion we covered in Hitting the Offensive Lob.