Best Pickleball Drills

Like every other sport, getting better at pickleball requires practice, especially if you’re aiming to participate in leagues or tournaments. In this article, we’ll discuss drills and skills to practice that will give you the results you’re looking for on the pickleball court. The pickleball drills described below work well for both beginners and the more advanced. We’re hoping they’ll give you tons of inspiration to implement them into your training.

Wall Drills

Wall drills are great for a player who may not be able to find a partner or pickleball coach to practice with, but they’re a great solo exercise. You’ll need a wall or backboard for these drills. What the wall allows you to do is to isolate a particular shot.

Variations:

• Forehand groundstrokes only
• Backhand groundstrokes only
• Dinking
• Volleys
• Alternating between forehand and backhand
• Serves (TIP: be sure to place a piece of tape to visualize the top of the pickleball net)
• Lobs
• Placement (TIP: create targets with tape on the wall) 

If you’re a beginner, stay closer to the wall. As you improve, move back and challenge yourself. You can increase the speed of your shot to simulate playing with others. Ensure that you’re using good technique every time you hit. Wall drills will also help improve your reactivity.

Two Touch Drill

This drill works on paddle control and touch. There are four different levels to this drill:

1. Bounce, Touch; Bounce, Touch: Start with dinks where you hit the ball up to yourself and then send it over to your partner. This is what can improve your touch and feel for the ball.
2. Bounce, Touch, Touch: Dink, hit the ball up to yourself, and volley it back into another dink. The goal here is to try to get your ball to land in the kitchen.
3. Touch, Bounce, Touch: This one is with volleys. Hit soft and conservative until you get used to this drill. You’ll volley, but allow the ball to land on your side before sending it back over to your partner.
4. Touch, Touch: Volleys again. As the volley comes in, hit it up, and volley it back to your partner.

These drills will lock in your touch and feel up at the net. While these drills are for more advanced players, we encourage beginners and intermediate-level players to give these drills a shot since learning feel and touch are so important to pickleball.

Skinny Singles

This drill is more of a game that you can play with your partner. It will instill more life and energy into any practice session. For this drill, you and your hitting partner will only be using one-half of the court, standing across the net.

Play a game to sixteen within the restricted area. The only quirk to this drill is that you must serve down the line instead of crosscourt. Making the court smaller enhances your aim and placement. It also increases the pace of the game, which improves your reactivity and speed.

This drill can help people learn to control the ball, especially if they tend to over-hit. It also will help beginners work on their control due to the restricted court size. 

Variations:

• Restrict yourselves to only crosscourt
• Odds and Evens: The even side of the pickleball court is the deuce side, and the odd is the advantage court. Begin play on the even side since the score would be even at 0-0 - which means you’ll be restricted to crosscourt only. Every time you score a point, that dictates where you play. For example, if the score is 1-0, one player stands on the odd side and the other on the even. Play is restricted to crosscourt only. If the score is 4-4, both players are on the even side, only playing down the line.

The drills mentioned in this article are for any skill level. Practice is such an essential aspect of the sport that needs to become routine if you’re looking to improve your skills, technique, and overall game. We hope you’re able to grab your pickleball bag and give one or all of these drills and games a try the next time you’re on the court.

For additional pickleball drills along with pickleball videos, check out Pickleball Insights.