Transcription
Hey guys, I'm Michael Lloyd, pro pickleball player, coach, and someone who spent way too many hours drilling instead of just playing wreck games. I've been competing professionally since 2023. I'm a top ranked men's singles player, and I've won over 135 matches on the pro tour.
If your idea of practice is just playing games and hoping you magically improve, I've got some bad news. That's why most players stay stuck at the same level for years. Today, I'm giving you the seven best pickball drills that actually work. Drills I still use as a pro. And the best part is every single one can be scaled from beginner all the way to the pro level.
Why this matters? Here's the hard truth. Games expose your weaknesses while drills fix them. Most WCK players never practice their weaknesses. They only hit shots they're already comfortable with. A lot of WCK players confuse sweating with improving. Drilling lets you get more reps in less time and prove consistency faster, and it builds confidence under pressure. If you only steal one of these drills, your game will still level up.
Drill number one, cooperative dinking. This is the most important drill in pickle ball and also the most butchered. Here's how it works. Two players will stand at the kitchen line and dink crosscourt only. No attacking, no speedups. Your goal is not to win. It's to keep the rally alive.
Here are some focus points. This is going to be in a crosscourt only setting. Uh so I like to make sure that I'm mixing up different paces using different spins. I'll try to hit different spots on my opponent. So I'm going to maybe alternate from going on their inside foot to their outside foot. You want to have soft hands and high margin over the net. You want to have a consistent height and depth on your dink. The main thing here is I want to make sure that I can do uh all of these like consistently, right? I don't want to just hit five or 10 dinks and then all of a sudden miss. I want to make sure that I can hit this over and over again. Uh a good target for for a lot of players starting out would be 20 dinks in a row. And if you can't dink 20 balls in a row, attacking is going to be a fantasy.
Focus on moving the ball around, playing with spin, and experimenting with offensive and defensive dinking. Try aiming at your opponent's inside foot. This is going to be towards the middle and their outside foot near the line. You'll mix up between the spots. I want you to make sure that you're alternating between top spin and slice stinks. That will also be kind of the difference between an aggressive or a dead dink. So, I'm using different types of dinks here. You'll see me roll some top spin. Sometimes I'll hit just some slice. I'm trying to mix up my spots as well. Remember, we're not attacking here, but we are looking to be a little bit aggressive when we can on some of these dinks. I'll take some out of the air if I can. Just like that.
For some pro insight, watch players like Ben John's. They can dink forever without missing. And that's why they get to the attackable ball.
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Drill number two, dink attack decision drill. This is where dinking stops being passive and starts turning into points. Here's how it works. Both players start at the kitchen line and they're going to rally straight ahead. Dinks only to begin. In this drill, we're going to be dinking straight ahead to each other. I want us to literally hit the ball kind of right to each other. So, we get some nice consistency and some rhythm to to start. After five consecutive dinks, not including the feed. We're going to be allowed to move our opponents around a little bit more, change direction. Uh, we can also attack or we can keep thinking if it's not the right ball. Okay, this is what it'll look like. So, that's a feed. Doesn't count. Now we're at one, two, three, four, and five. Okay, now it's live. I can start moving her around a little bit. Again, I'm still just working in the half court here till I find a ball to attack. And then the point is live from there. Okay, after five consecutive dinks, either player is allowed to speed up, change direction, or keep dinking. Once an attack happens, the point is live and played out normally.
Here's why this matters. It forces players to earn their attack instead of forcing it. It trains decision-m and helps you think, is this ball actually attackable? It builds patience first and aggression second, exactly how points are won in real matches. It also simulates the mental pressure of knowing you're allowed to attack whenever, but shouldn't unless it's the right time. This drill is going to teach you when to attack, not just how.
Here's some coaching cues. If you're leaning or reaching, don't attack. Look for balls above the net height and in front of your body. Stay balanced throughout the dink rally and keep your paddle prep identical on dinks and speed ups. This will help you disguise.
Here's a nice progression. For beginners, you should increase the required dink count to seven to 10 before attacking. So, if you see yourself just speeding up the wrong balls, making bad decisions, let's go for 10 consecutive dinks instead before you're allowed to speed up or do anything. Okay, here's a feed. We got 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. All right, point is live.
If you're advanced, one player is going to be designated as the attacker during the rally, while the defender's goal is to reset and regain control. Switch roles every five points. The progression for my advanced players is going to actually be defining roles within this drill. Uh if you're an advanced player and you kind of mastered it as it stands, we're going to have one of the players be the the reset person while the other player will be the attacker. Right? So in this drill, we'll still do the five dinks. We'll get things started and then I'm hunting. I'm the one that's looking for an attackable ball while my partner is kind of staying on defense, ready to reset and ready to kind of neutralize. All right, here's what it'll look like. We got the feed. One, two, three, four, five. Now I'm hunting. I'm looking for an attackable ball. Okay, she'll reset and it'll kind of keep going until one of us wins that point one way or the other. That's exactly how that'll look. After five points, go ahead and swap rolls with your partner so you're getting to work on both of those skill sets.
Drill number three, third shot drop factory. If you want to move up levels, this drill is a non-negotiable. Here's how it works. Player A starts at the baseline while player B is at the kitchen. And this drill, uh, to start off, we're going to do this like with our beginner progression. We're gonna have, uh, the player at the kitchen line hitting cooperatively back to me. She's not trying to win the point. She's not trying to make it too difficult. This is all about rhythm to start. Player A hits only third shot drops while player B hits the ball back to them.
Here's a couple of coaching cues. I want to make sure on my third shot drop that I have a nice big arc with a soft landing. I'm aiming for my opponent's feet, and I would rather miss long instead of into the net. For me, as the player hitting third shot drops, I want to focus on a couple of things. First off, I want to have a nice consistent trajectory. I don't want to be aiming right above the net. I want to give myself about 2 to 3 ft of space and margin. Uh, so I'm not flirting with that net. Uh, the other thing is I'm trying to aim at my opponent's feet. I'm not necessarily trying to get this to land perfectly in the kitchen. Instead, I'm just aiming for something that's going to be kind of difficult for them to attack. All right, here we go. So again, I'm just trying to give myself a lot of margin here. I'm not trying to make the ball bounce perfectly over the net. Instead, I'm trying to make sure that I've got about two or three feet to play with. Another thing that I'm trying to think about on these is no big takeback. I want everything to kind of be out in front of my body, focusing on a nice long follow through.
If you're a power player, you may hate this reel, which is exactly why you need it. If you're a beginner, have your partner hit balls back to you cooperatively. My partner is allowed to hit to both my forehand and my backhand. Again, this is just nice and cooperative, just trying to push that ball back to me over and over again. Not trying to win the point.
If you're a pro and you've been working on this a little bit longer, have your partner try to win the point using pace and placement while you're trying to stay consistent. An advanced progression of this would be having your kitchen player making this more difficult on the baseline player. Okay, so she's going to move me side to side. maybe not going to try to hit outright winners in the beginning, but if she sees an opportunity, say three, four, five balls in, she can go ahead and try to do that on me. Okay, that's going to make it to where I'm trying to hit these as good as I possibly can so that she is not attacking me. Okay, again, we still want to keep margin and all that stuff in mind. Uh, but I want to make sure that I'm making it as difficult on the kitchen player so that they're not taking advantage of me. Okay, so she's trying to be aggressive. That may introduce a couple of errors. That's fine. I just want her to be moving me around, mixing up her spins. Maybe she moves me a little bit off of my half. That's okay. This should be a little bit more uh cardio for me, right? I'm moving side to side. It's not going to be just standing in that stationary spot the whole time. She's going to try to take some balls out of the air if I miss high. Really put some more pressure on me if she can. Move me all the way out to the sidelines. hit a little bit harder, make it really hard. But again, she wants to be pushing me, right? Okay. If I hit 20 in a row to start, then my oppo my my opponent or my partner, my drilling partner, she's not making it hard enough on me. Okay, go ahead and try that. Make sure that you're getting both rolls in on this. Okay, so I'll do that for a little bit. Let's say 5 minutes uh in that beginner spot, 5 minutes on the advanced progression, and then I'll swap rolls with my partner.
Once you feel good, continue the same drill, but keep score and have player A try to reach five points before player B can reach 11. Here's a pro tip. Consistency beats perfection. Five okay drops beats one perfect highlight reel every time.
Drill number four, reflex hands battles. This drill separates casual players from competitors. Here's how it works. Both players are going to be at the kitchen line with fast cooperative volleys. The paddle is going to stay up and the swing stays nice and compact. We're going to work on reflex vols here. It's really important that we're staying nice and compact. This is a cooperative drill with my partner here. I'm not trying to win. There's no game or anything like that. To start off, I really want to focus on alternating uh my target on my opponent. So, I'm going to be going forehand to backhand on her while she's doing the same thing on me. So, I'll be hitting all of mine uh down the line while she's hitting everything crosscourt. It'll form kind of this nice little butterfly and help us get in rhythm. Okay. So, I'm going down the line to her backhand. She's going to take that backhand crosscourt to my backhand. and that'll keep the pattern going. So, nice and cooperative. I want to make sure that this is a pace that I can maintain with my partner. If that bounces, that's okay. I'll just speed it back up into this drill. Just trying to find rhythm. It'll start to get a little bit of like a dance here. And we're just in a nice little flow. Okay.
After you've done that for a little bit, you want to make sure that you switch sides. If you're the person that was kind of going down the line, you'll have uh them go down the line instead while you're doing your crosscourt. Again, really making sure that you're being nice and compact. There should be no back swings. Instead, we're just worried about a nice little short punchy follow through. Focus on short punches, not full long swings. Want to keep the paddle in front of your chest, tracking the ball all the way. Alternate aiming at your partner's forehand and backhand, and think about hitting different pressure points such as the shoulder, your elbow, or the hip. Hands battles aren't about strength, they're about readiness.
Try starting this drill one step inside the kitchen line before moving back behind it. You'll feel like you have so much time once you go back. In order to progress this drill a little bit, I'm going to step about a foot inside the kitchen line, as will my partner, and this going to make the reactions a little bit harder and make everything go a little bit quicker. Okay, we'll go back to me going down the line while my partner goes cross. Oh, she's killing it. Oh, now she's killing me. >> All right. And then after you've done that for a little bit, make sure to back up. It'll feel like you have a lot more time than you did before. I'm going line, you're going cross. Okay, make sure and try that one out.
A great pro example of this would be Annalie Waters. Her paddle barely moves, but she's there in time and hits the ball back with pace and accuracy. Couple of things to keep in mind here. Making sure that your paddle stays up the whole time. There's no point in hitting this and then bringing it back down only to bring it back up, right? I want to stay here. This is where everything fast is going to be. So, I want to be prepared for that, right? I also want to make sure that my paddle is nice and high up in front of my chest because that's where I'm expecting most of these balls to come. All right, I can do all of that and again keep those nice compact motion. No big back swing or anything like that. That's going to help me be in the best position possible.
Hi, I'm Michael Lloyd. Welcome to my instructional pickle ball 101, Mastering the Basics. I'm a pro pickleball player with over 130 match wins on tour and I'm a top 10 singles player. While I'm always pushing for more wins, I bring to every match and this instructional a mindset of realism, hard work, and improvement that will help transform your game as a beginner. This instructional is everything I wish I knew when I first started out. I've taken everything that I've learned from competing at the highest levels, coaching, training, and analyzing what works and what fails, and I've broken it down into a clear, easy to follow system designed specifically for beginners and intermediate players. This instructional will help you build rocksolid fundamentals fast. Insight Pickle Ball 101 will cover movement mechanics that will help you flow on the court. The correct way to serve, return, and rally so you feel confident from shot one. Core positioning and guidance so you'll never be out of place. Strategies for playing the kitchen line with control and confidence. And a live coaching session where you can watch as I analyze and help new players progress. This isn't just another random YouTube tutorial. It's full of skills taught by somebody who's turned pro, won hundreds of matches, and studied his own film. If you're ready to stop feeling lost, and start feeling results, this is your launchpad. I'm excited to help you guys fall in love with the game the same way I did. Let's build your skills together so you can be confident, consistent, and yes, have fun while you play. Learn from the best, play like the best at picklehub.com.
Drill number five, serve and return lab. You hit these shots every single point, yet no one ever practices them. Here's how it work. Server serves only deep while the returner returns only deep. No rally afterwards. You're just going to reset and repeat this. Just going to be a cooperative drill where each of us are trying to hit the ball as deep as we can consistently. All right. As the server, I'm trying to make sure that I have a nice long relaxed motion on the surf so I can get that nice free depth. Uh on the returner, she's making sure that she's got plenty of space between her and the baseline so that she can get a good step into the ball and use that momentum to help her get the ball deep as well. Right. Here's what that'll look like. Again, I want to be nice and closed off here. Set up cones or targets on the court to designate the area where you want serves and returns to land. I think a good target would be about 3 ft uh in front of the baseline on both sides so you have a really good spot to aim at. Nice. So, we'll set like a good target for each of us and they're separate from each other, right? So, I want to get 10 good deep serves. She wants to get 10 good deep returns. They don't have to come on the same series, right? If I hit a short serve and she hits a great return, that's going to add to her total. And the same thing vice versa.
Why this drill is gold? It improves consistency instantly and builds pressure-free confidence. Fix short balls fast. If your serve or return lands short, you're giving your opponent a free ride to the kitchen, plus the ability to be offensive. Make sure that you're keeping the ball on your paddle as long as you can to help with that depth. I think the serve and return are some of the most undervalued and underpracticed shots in pickle ball. Even though they're the only two shots that start out every single route, okay? Make sure you're going out and hitting baskets of these. I like to think about trying to get at least two sets of these during a week. That's going to help me make sure that my serves are nice and offensive and my returns are nice and consistent as well.
Drill number six, transition zone survival game. This is where points go to dime. Here's how it works. One player is at the baseline while the other player is at the kitchen line. The baseline player must advance through drops and drives while the kitchen player blocks, counters, and looks for any offensive opportunities. In this drill, we're gonna have one player at the baseline with the opponent uh up at the kitchen line. The kitchen line player is going to be trying to keep the baseline player back with whatever they can, whether it's rolls, flicks, uh any sort of offensive opportunity that they can take to keep me back and or win the point. All right. At the baseline, I'm using drives and drops, any combination uh to get me all the way up to the kitchen line. I'm not allowed to lob or anything like that. Um, but any shot besides that is at my disposal to get me up there. All right. So, I'll feed in the ball from the baseline. I'm gonna immediately give her an offensive opportunity so she can counter it at me. And I'm using whatever I can to get up to the line so she can attack. I'm moving forward. Good shot by her. Here we go. I'll feed in an offensive opportunity again for her. She's going to push me back to start. Trying to use whatever I can to get up to the net. and then we'll finish the point out.
This drill only utilizes half of the court, but players can alternate playing straight ahead and crosscourt. To turn this into a game, keep score where the baseline player must reach seven points where the kitchen player has to get 11.
Here's some coaching cues. Make sure to split step before each and every shot while in transition. You don't want to sprint through and stop and reset. When under pressure, the goal is not speed. It's control while moving forward. Notice how I'm not just sprinting up with my head cut off or anything like that. I'm trying to be really thoughtful about hit one ball to get to the next. Right? There's a lot of people that hit maybe one perfect shot and they're sprinting all the way up there. They're going to put themselves out of position, right? Instead, I want to think about getting there as quickly as I comfortably can. Right? So, that's going to look different for different people if you've got different levels of mobility. Uh maybe, you know, your stride length is different. All of that is going to determine how quickly you get up to the line. All right? For some of us, that may be two or three shots. For others, it may be four or five depending on that mobility again or the quality of the ball itself over hitting. Okay? And we'll talk through that a little bit. So maybe I hit one good ball there. My second I'm a little slower to get up, but I'm always on balance. I'm always kind of getting that nice little split step in between each one of my shots. Again, I can drive the ball. Doesn't have to be a reset. Whatever I need to get all the way up to the kitchen. Here, I'll give an example of kind of why you don't want to run in, what that will look like if you're kind of offbalance. Okay, I feed that first ball in. I kind of blindly run in. A lot of times I'll end up with something down towards my feet. Okay, instead again, I always want to be balanced, right? I'm just sprinting. It's going to be really hard for me to stop, compose myself, and actually know what's coming next.
Drill number seven, cooperative to competitive game. Let's tie everything together. Here's how it works. half court or full court. Start each point with cooperative play. After all players establish themselves at the kitchen line and one dink is hit, the point is now live. Play to seven or 11. I'm going to start with a cooperative serve. She's going to hit a cooperative return. Again, we're still trying to get that ball nice and deep. Uh and then we're going to be cooperative until we're all the way up at the kitchen line and that first dink is played. After that, everything goes. Uh you can speed up, you can lob, you can move them around, do whatever you want. Okay? It's just really important that we're not trying to win the point necessarily until we've gotten up to that kitchen line and hit that first game. Here's what that'll look like. Okay, I'm hitting a nice cooperative deep serve as much as I can. She's hitting it nice and deep. I'm trying to go slow to start this. And that first dink is hit. So, now we're good to go. Okay, speed ups are live. Ah. All right. So, that's how that'll look. Uh, if uh it's just you and one other partner, we're going to play that game to 11. If it's you and four people on a court where we're playing kind of that full court setup, uh you're going to play to seven. Okay? Okay. So, it'll be nice and quick. We're doing rally scoring format. Uh it's not about who's serving or returning or anything like that. So, in that case, uh she won the point even though she was the returner. And we'll play that up to 11 because it's just me and her.
Here's why this works. It forces patient decision-m while blending drills into real points. It's also going to expose habits under pressure. And this is where skills turn into win. Here's another example of a point. Again, nice deep serve. She's hitting a good return. Cooperative drive all the way up. We got one dink and now everything's locked. Okay, we can move each other around. Okay, I really like this drill for a couple of reasons. The main thing is that it blends that real like drill feeling where you're trying to work together, make a bunch of balls with the real game, right? It's competitive. We're in a real situation. It's not just isolating one thing specifically. Uh so it gives you a nice good blend. It also forces you to make good decisions. Right? In the beginning, you're not worried about doing anything flashy or anything crazy cool. You're just worried about hitting the right ball to get the point going. And then once you're up there, you can start having a little bit more fun with it. Make sure and try this drill with you and a partner or if you can get four people. That's one of my favorite drills to do.
People often say drilling isn't very fun, but you know what is fun? Winning. So, let me know which of these drills are you actually going to start using. Be honest. Drop them in the comments. And if you want to know which drills fix which rating level problems, check out your next video on your screen. I'll break it all down. See you there.