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4 Times You Should Not Attack During A Fast Exchange
Serve Return Drill, Soreness Recovery, DIY Backyard PB Court, Pickleball in Times Square, Morning Mobility Routine, Trevor Noah PB Humor, Pro News & More
FIT PICKLER
August 20, 2026
Health, Fitness, News & Fun for Picklers of All Ages
What's Cooking in the Kitchen This Week:
4 Times You Should Not Attack During a Fast Exchange
Why Feeling Fine Doesn’t Always Mean You’re Recovered
DRILL OF THE WEEK: The Return Depth Ladder Drill
Fitness Expert Glenn Dawson: Can You Pass This Hip Mobility Test?
Doubles For Munro And Van Reek At The 2026 English Pickleball Open
NEW SECTION: GEAR REVIEW: Selkirk Edge Guard Tape
Couple Reveals Final Price of DIY Backyard Pickleball Court
Play Free Pickleball Right In The Middle Of Times Square for 5 Days
HUMOR: Trevor Noah’s Hilarious Pickleball Story
Coach Mary: Are Returns More Important than Serves?
🥷SKILLS
4 Times You Should NOT
Attack During A Fast Exchange
🎶 Round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows 🎶
Fast exchanges at the kitchen can make it feel as though there is only one choice: keep hitting faster until somebody loses the battle.
Sometimes that is exactly the right play. If the opponent gives you a ball you can attack from a balanced position, continuing to apply pressure makes sense. But many hands battles are lost because a player keeps attacking after the advantage has disappeared.
A soft reset can change that. Instead of trying to win an exchange that is beginning to favor the other team, you take the pace off the ball, put it back into the kitchen, and give yourself a chance to start again. The difficult part is recognizing when the rally has reached that point.
Here are four situations when continuing the attack may be the worse choice.
1. The Ball Has Dropped Below Net Height
The first speedup may have been a good decision. The next ball may not be.
⚕️HEALTH & FITNESS
Why Feeling Fine Doesn’t
Always Mean You’ve Recovered
Things Are Not Always As They Seem
One of the nice things about pickleball is that it does not always feel like a workout. A good morning on the court can mean two or three hours of playing, talking, sitting out a game, then jumping back in for another. You may go home tired, eat lunch, sleep well, and wake up the next morning feeling perfectly capable of doing it again.
And often you are.
The problem comes when feeling good becomes the only measure of whether the body has recovered. Muscles, tendons, joints, and the rest of the body do not necessarily recover at the same rate. You can wake up without soreness and still be carrying some of the workload from the previous day. When that happens repeatedly, three or four ordinary playing days can add up to more stress than any one of them seemed to create.
Rest days give the body time to catch up.
Recovery Is More Than Waiting for Soreness to Go Away
Muscle soreness is one of the easiest signs of incomplete recovery to recognize. If the legs are sore when walking downstairs, most people understand that another hard session may not be a great idea.
No soreness is harder to interpret. It is tempting to assume that feeling normal means everything is back to normal..
🥷 Drill of the Week:
The Return Depth Ladder Drill
🎶 Working My Way Back To You Babe 🎶
A deep return can keep the server back and buy you more time to get to the kitchen. The tricky part is finding how deep you can consistently hit without turning a smart return into a low-percentage shot. The Return Depth Ladder Drill helps you find that sweet spot by making the target progressively tougher.
Try the drill and find the deepest return you can actually trust in a game.
🏋️ STAYING FIT with
GLENN & BRIANNA
5 Minute Mobility Routine
🏓 PRO NEWS
Doubles For Munro & Van Reek
At The 2026 English Open (APP)
More than 3,400 players descended on Birmingham for the 2026 English Pickleball Open, powered by the APP, making it the largest indoor pickleball event ever held. Top pros from the U.S., Europe and beyond packed massive draws that delivered early upsets and several players chasing multiple titles.
See which international stars broke through and who walked away from Birmingham with multiple gold medals.
⚙️ GEAR REVIEWS
Selkirk Edge Guard Tape
NEW FROM PICKLER JUNCTION: The Pickler Junction Team’s reviews go above and beyond a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. They pull together independent testing, verified buyer feedback, community opinions, and objective performance data to show where the Selkirk Edge Guard Tape shines, and where it may not be the right fit, depending on how you play. Note: Review will list MSRP, link will show sale price if available.
Shopping for new pickleball gear? Reply here and we’ll tell The PJ Team what to review next!
🗞️ COMMUNITY NEWS
Couple Reveals Final Price
of DIY Backyard PB Court
A backyard pickleball court sounded great to one Missouri couple, until they learned what it could cost to have one built. So Lindsey and Tyler Dobson took on most of the job themselves, spending 45 days wrestling with concrete, resurfacing, paint, and a few steps that proved much harder than YouTube made them look.
👏 COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT
Play Free Pickleball
Right In The Middle of
Times Square for 5 Days
For five days, pickleball is taking over one of the most unlikely courts imaginable: Times Square. CityPickle and the Times Square Alliance are putting a professional court right in the middle of Midtown, with free open play alongside pro exhibitions, Beat-the-Pro sessions, games, prizes and a live DJ.
See when CityPicklePalooza hits Times Square and how to sign up for your chance to play.
🤣 HUMOR
Trevor Noah’s Hilarious
Pickleball Story
🧭 COMMUNITY NEWS
RALLY RUNDOWN:
LOCAL HIGHLIGHTS
FOLSOM, CA: Folsom Seeks Public Input On Plan To Replace Basketball Court With Pickleball Courts
AUGUSTA, ME: A Passion For Pickleball: Players Patch Augusta Courts To Keep Ball In Play
LAKE HALLIE, WI: The Big Pickleballooza Raises Money For Big Brothers Big Sisters
BUTLER COUNTY, PA: More Than A Game: Pickleball Builds Community In Butler County
MARYVILLE, MO: Maryville Rotary Pickleball Tournament To Serve Up Support In Fight Against Polio
TEXARKANA, TX: Tough Kookie Foundation Hosts Pickleball Tournament For Childhood Cancer
DOTHAN, AL: Dothan Sees Tremendous Impact From Addition Of Pickleball Complex
NORTH LOGAN, UT: Classroom To Court: This Utah Online Student Chases Professional Pickleball Dreams
DO YOU HAVE LOCAL NEWS TO SHARE? REACH OUT TO US AT
[email protected] and send us a link to your story!
HOLDING COURT with
COACH MARY
💪 Are Returns More Important
Than Serves?
Elijah explains that there are three levels:
Beginner, or “Safe” Return:
• Make sure I am behind the baseline, with my paddle in front.
• Wait and Stop, Hit, continue up to the NVZ line.
• Stroke is compact, almost a half swing and simple, paddle face open so that you can get your return high and deep, allowing you time to get to the Kitchen line quickly.
Intermediate Return:
• Move up closer to the baseline.
• Paddle position is low, with a compact swing, but bigger swing than the beginner return.
• Paddle face is more closed.
• Start your swing and start moving through the ball with a little bit bigger swing. You are moving through this shot, rather than stopping and hitting. You will now get to the line quicker.
Advanced Return:
• Move up right behind the baseline.
• Take a bigger backswing, and a full stroke as you move.
• Take the ball on the rise, almost like a short hop.
• Use plenty of topspin!
• You will have a positional advantage and get to the Kitchen quicker.
I had one of my higher drill classes watch this video first, and then we drilled it with stations. I posed this question: When would you incorporate the intermediate and advanced returns?
Several of them got it right!
When the serve is mid court or short to the forehand.
When you are using Rally scoring. Weaponize your return when you can score with it!
Remember to know your own mobility limitations and move only as quickly as you can with balance to prevent injuries.