Transcription
Today we're going to break down one of the most overlooked shots in all of pickleball. This is a shot that I see people struggle with on a daily basis. That is the overhead smash.
The overhead smash is a shot that should win you the point every single time if done correctly. However, for a lot of people, this is actually a liability. We're going to break down everything you need to know in order to turn this shot into a weapon and stop giving away free points. Make sure you watch till the end of the video where I'm going to show you where to hit these shots in order to win the point.
The first part of hitting a good overhead smash comes from recognizing the high ball or the lob. Three things that we're going to focus on for recognizing the lob is going to be our opponent's paddle position, the context of play, and player habits.
So, the first thing we want to look for when recognizing the lob is going to be our opponent's paddle position. If they're going to lob us, they're going to have to get underneath the ball in a more extreme position. So, we want to look for our opponent to drop that paddle head and really get underneath the ball. That's going to be the first tell that our opponent's going to hit a lob.
The second thing we want to look for is the context of play. Let's say we're in a position where I'm off balance and I need to buy myself time. So, I might be stretched out here. This can be a great time for me to hit a lob because a lot of times my opponents are going to be looking forwards, right? They're going to be reaching in to look for those pop-ups, and I might want to throw up that lob to one, catch them off guard, and two, buy myself time.
Lastly, and most commonly, we want to look for our opponent's tendencies. If you've played this opponent before and you know that they throw up the lob a lot, that's something you want to have in your mind, right? So, especially if they're on the stretch and this person is someone who throws up the lob, we want to have that in our mind and always be prepared.
Okay, so now let's talk about positioning. We know our opponent's hitting us a lob. Mostly every single time we're going to be facing our opponent here. So, we're going to be facing forwards. The first thing we do when we see that that lob is coming up is we take our dominant foot and we turn it back like this. We're going to take that foot back and we're going to combine it with a shoulder turn. So, dominant foot back and shoulder turn. Those are the first two steps. And lastly, once we're in this position, we want to get into a trophy position here. So that's going to be our arm's going to come up with our elbow and that left arm is going to be pointing at wherever the ball is. So it's going to look like this.
So from this position, now we move back and we calibrate where we're going to strike that ball. Our ideal position, depending on how deep the lob is, is we're going to catch this ball with our left hand. So, let's say he hits a lob and it's going to land right here. Well, then I want to get in this position to where I can catch that ball with my left hand and then strike because that's going to be our ideal contact point.
Let's see an example here. So, how you can work on this one is just getting in that turn position and then just catching the ball. So, have someone lob you and then practice catching the ball to get in that ideal position. So, that's a great drill to practice your positioning and getting in the right stance to attack and strike that ball.
So, now that we've talked about getting in the ideal position and a great drill to help that, let's talk about the swing. So, we're going to be right here in the mid-court where the lob is and we're going to be in this position right here. And what we need to do is get from this position into our contact and finish with a nice swing. How do we do that? Well, once we're here, a lot of the work is already done, right? Because we're in that trophy position. Our legs are nice and strong here and we're behind the ball. What we want to do is have a light grip. We want to pass our shoulder from the back to the front and we want to accelerate with our hand. So, the main thing is passing this shoulder from the back to the front while meeting that contact point right here where your left arm would be.
So, let's take a look at this. So, that's a good example there. The first thing I do is I'm getting in my position, then I'm moving back and then right when I have that strike point where I feel like I can catch it with my left hand, I'm passing my shoulder forwards.
One thing I want to add, let's say that they hit a good deep lob and you actually can't get back there in time. What you're gonna have to do is make up power. So, your body weight can actually fall backwards here, but you want to make sure that you're still passing your right shoulder forward. So, I'm going to move back like this. The lob's behind me. My body weight is still going to be falling back because they hit a good lob, but I'm still passing that right shoulder forward with nice hand acceleration.
So, a common mistake I see is that people go back, they hit the overhead, and then they wait in this position here. You really want to make sure that after you hit that overhead, you get back up to the kitchen line and try to take that next ball as high as possible and put it down again. Remember that once you hit this overhead, you're taking a high ball that you're hitting downwards. You want to make sure that you keep that pressure downwards at them and you don't want to let them then reset and get the ball at your feet.
So when you hit this shot, you now are in a position where you're back and you have a lot of room in front of you for them to play. However, if you move in and close after this shot, then you're closing that gap to where they can reset and get the ball at your feet. So we started something back here and we want to make sure that we finish it. Even if they don't get the shot back, we want to make sure that we're still there in case.
So, that's an example of something bad, right? We don't want to do that. I waited in this position and therefore Rex was able to get the ball down on my feet and he was actually able to close rather than me getting the advantage.
So, now let's talk about targets when we're hitting the lob. A good rule of thumb is the deeper you are, the less angle you have. So, you want to play through the middle and the closer you are to that kitchen line, then you want to use more angle. Let's take a look at two examples here. One of them, I'm going to be pushed back, so I'm going to play a ball down the middle and then look to close on my next shot, which is going to be shorter. And the second one, the lob's going to be shorter, so I'm going to have more angle to try and get that ball off the court. I see people make this mistake a lot where they're trying to play too much of an angle from too far back in the court. However, that's counterproductive. Instead, you want to use a hard shot down the middle and then try to finish the ball with an angle on the next shot. If you start with a short lob closer to the kitchen, then you want to put that ball off the court by using the angle.
So, in this example, Rex hit a deep lob. I take the first one, I put it down the middle, and then I close on the next ball by going off the court. This is going to work really well in a doubles game. We only have two people here, so we're doing a singles matchup. Here's going to be the second example. So, here Rex gave me a shorter lob. Something that I didn't have to move too far back in. It came quick, so I wasn't able to get far back. I took it closer to the kitchen, but I was able to just use my angle and get it right off the court. If he hits a higher, deeper lob, then I would take that one down the middle and I would look to close the next one by putting it off the court.
So, let's talk about common mistakes. The first common mistake I see is people run backwards with no balance. They're falling all over the place and they're not in that trophy position. The way you fix this is doing the technique and the steps that we talked about in the beginning. Right? First thing we want to do is step back with our dominant hand, get the arm up here with the shoulder turn. And then we want to move back. So we want to move back in this controlled position rather than falling all over the place trying to hit our overhead like this.
So, that's a bad example there. Obviously, very bad. I'm moving back with no balance. I have no control of my body. And by the time I get to that strike zone position, my weight is all over the place. I have no control of my shoulder. And I really have no control of how I'm going to hit that shot. Instead, we want to do it like this. So, in this example, I have lots of control over my body. He still was able to hit a good deep lob, but I turned here. I got my shoulders up and I moved with control rather than flailing all over the place.
Another common mistake I see is someone gets hit a deep lob and they try to go for a crazy sharp angle. When you get hit that deep lob, we want to go powerful down the middle and then close on the next ball and use that sharp angle. The reason we don't want to go for that crazy sharp angle on a deep lob is because the margins on this shot are very low. Instead, we want to use that as a setup shot, attacking down the middle and closing on the next one.
So, in this example, he hit a deep lob. I go for a short angle and I miss it wide because the margins are just too hard and too low. So in this example, he hit a deep lob. I hit it down the middle. And then rather than trying to hit that sharp angle on that first shot, I use it as a setup shot. He gave me another short ball and I used it as an angle because I was closer to the net.
So lastly, drills that you can do to help your overhead. We talked about it earlier, but that's getting in the correct position and catching the ball. This is really going to do the work for you because you have to get in the correct position if you want to catch that ball in your strike zone. So, it's going to look something like this. I'm going to get in that trophy position, my shoulders turned, my dominant foot back, and I'm just going to catch that ball rather than striking. So, I'm a little off balance there. That's what we don't want. We want to try to get in the correct position every time with good balance.
So, that's what it should look like, right? If you do it perfectly, I'm in perfect position there, and my overhead is going to be a good one because all the work was done for me previously to striking the ball.
So, there you have it, guys. Thanks so much for watching. Please subscribe as it lets me know that you're liking the videos and fuels me to make more videos like this. If you have anything you want me to cover, comment down below and I'll make sure to check it out. Also, if you come to a PPA tournament this year, make sure to say hi as I love getting to meet you guys. Thanks and see you in the next one.