Mastering the Volley Shot

Injury Prevention, Deaf Pickleball Players & Caitlin Clark

Author

Elena
July 11, 2024

Health, Fitness, News & Fun for Picklers of All Ages

What's Cooking in the Kitchen This Week:

  • Mastering the Volley Shot

  • Fitness Expert Glen Dawson: How to Strengthen Your Shoulders

  • Low Impact Does Not Mean Low Injury: How To Stay Safe

  • Celebrity & Charity: See Caitlin Clark Playing Pickleball

  • Deaf Pickleball Players Profiled

  • How Often Should You Change Your Pickleball Paddle?

  • Opinion: Can Pickleball Save America?

  • The Fit Pickler Survey Contest: Enter Today!

  • Rally Rundown: Local Highlights

  • Announcements: RPPA Free Membership & PickleCon

  • Coach Mary: Senior Players: How to Defend the Lob

🥷 SKILLS

Mastering the Volley Shot:
The Ultimate Guide to
Pickleball's Winning Shot

The volley is one of the most crucial shots in pickleball, especially as players progress to intermediate and advanced levels. It's a rapid-fire exchange that can dictate the pace of a rally and often determines the winner of a point.

What is a Volley?

In simplest terms, a volley is hitting the ball in the air before it bounces. This differs from a groundstroke, where you let the ball bounce before hitting it. Volleys are typically executed at the non-volley zone (NVZ) line, also known as the kitchen, and are a key weapon in both offensive and defensive play.

When to Volley

Knowing when to volley is just as important as knowing how. A well-timed volley can catch your opponents off guard and put you in a commanding position. Here are some prime scenarios to consider:

• Fast-Paced Exchanges: When the ball is moving quickly across the net, a volley can maintain the tempo and pressure your opponents.

• High Balls at the NVZ: If a ball is popped up near the kitchen, a volley can be a decisive attack to end the point.

• Defensive Volleys: When pushed back by aggressive opponents, a well-placed volley can neutralize their attack and reset the point.
Click Here to Read All The Tips…

 🏋️ STAYING FIT with GLEN

How to Strengthen Your Shoulders

👨‍🔬HEALTH

Low Impact Does Not
Mean Low Injury:
How To Stay Safe

The article "How to Stay Injury-Free Playing Pickleball" from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette focuses on strategies to prevent common injuries in pickleball, such as strains, sprains, and overuse injuries.

It highlights the importance of proper warm-ups, regular strength training, and wearing the right footwear to reduce the risk of injuries. Expert opinions from sports medicine professionals and player anecdotes provide practical advice.

Dr. Andrew Lynch emphasizes, "Pickleball is fun, but it's also physically demanding. Ensuring your body is prepared can make all the difference in preventing injuries."

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center orthopedic surgeon Jonathan Hughes has seen a drastic uptick in patients from pickleball injuries.

In the end he concludes, “The benefits absolutely outweigh the risks. It’s a great way to encourage people to exercise in a moderately low-impact sport as well as get that camaraderie with others and get your heart rate going. It’s an absolutely great sport. I think we just have to do it in an appropriate and intelligent way.”

😇 CELEBRITY & CHARITY

Twitter is buzzing with
Caitlin Clark’s “I gotta take over”
Pickleball Shot


Indiana Fever guard Erica Wheeler hosted a Charity Pickleball tournament this past week. The event is held to benefit the Wheeler Kid Foundation with the goal of hosting a Walk to benefit Cancer research. The Walk will be held in Wheeler’s mother name who died of cancer 12 years ago.

Of course, as Fit Picklers, we have to have some fun and talk about one of the matches generating some Twitter buzz. Clark is seen poaching a ball for what went down as a point winning slam. But…. look a little closer!

We’re just having some “Monday Morning Refereeing” fun (although the rule for the kitchen line and the 3 point line in basketball is the same 😉).

We all know, if Caitlin Clark put her focus into any sport, she would be a superstar. Kudos to the fever players for giving back to the commnunity.

👏COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

Deaf Pickleball Players Profiled

“I love you Pickleball!”

Three players are profiled in this educational and inspiring article on deaf pickleball.

Billy Mauldin, who is from Baltimore, and is involved in running Deaf Pickleball Tournaments, says there are about 2,000 deaf players with those numbers growing daily.

Ben Coleman, who has medaled in Deaflympics events around the world, is a multi-sport athlete who hopes for hearing players to learn some basic sign language for on-court communication and gave a great suggestion that closed captioning be added to pickleball tutorial videos.

Read the full article which includes a simple to follow Sign Language Chart in the article to teach us all how to sign numbers from 1-20 and more information about Deaf Pickleball USA (DPUSA).
 Click here…

🛍️ GEAR

How Often Should You Change
Your Pickleball Paddle?

We all know that player who buys a new paddle every time a new model comes out. And sometimes we want different paddles for different types of games. But when is really the right time to change your paddle?

🤷‍♂️ OPINION

👉 Can Pickleball Save America?

Can Pickleball save America? This was a question New Yorker magazine writer Sarah Larson asked in 2023. With all the strife and division happening now, we thought it might be a good time to revisit the Washington Post article noting that pickleball raises our social capital.

No other sport really has the ability to bring together strangers from all walks of life, different sides of the aisle, different generations, all income levels, and from different states of ability.

Can divisions be overcome from lessons we learn in pickleball?

📜 ANNOUNCEMENTS

RPPA OFFERS FREE MEMBERSHIP
TIER FOR PLAYERS

The Recreational Pickleball Players Association allows pickleball players across the country to message one another, create local groups and events and get great deals from vendors who are a part of the first ever business directory for all things pickleball. VIP Members can access fitness training as well as pickleball coaching and community resources that serve to connect communities and advocate for more courts.
Check it out here …

PICKLECON IS COMING

Mark your calendars and grab your ticket to the Inaugural PickleCon convention in Kansas City from August 8-11th. Over 100 courts will be available in the Convention Center and over 80 vendors will attend, including The Fit Pickler!
Get more information here…

✅ SURVEY CONTEST ✅

🧭 COMMUNITY NEWS

RALLY RUNDOWN:
LOCAL HIGHLIGHTS


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

  💪 SENIOR PLAYERS:
HOW TO DEFEND THE LOB:

HOW TO DEFEND THE LOB AS A SENIOR PLAYER

Introducing Steve Paranto. Paranto has been playing competitive Pickleball since 1974.  He is one of the first certified Pickleball instructors.  Check out this video on defending lobs.

1.   Safety: One of the biggest causes of injury in Pickleball is seniors backing up to defend the lob.

2.  Turn sideways first: Use a throwing motion, keep your head up.  Point your finger at the ball, or your elbow at the ball, like a quarterback.

3.   If you hit a short dink that is easy for your opponent to lob, quickly take a couple of steps back and get your paddle up so you can defend the lob.  Stay balanced!

4.   If your team is at the net, and your opponent is lobbing from their own baseline, do not try to hit a line, or a winner that goes out.  A good target is deep middle. 

5.   Early on, when your opponent sends up a lob, call it!  One of you calls it or says yours, right away.

6.   If you do have to chase a lob down, turn sideways, call it, turn and run with your head down, and run past the ball.  Do not try to look up at the ball while you are running.  Use a “C” shape to run to the side of the ball, and past it, so that when it bounces, you are behind the ball and can either execute a third shot drop or a lob. 

7.   Steve gives one last tip for senior players:  If you are getting lobbed quite a bit, one of you may play off the line, rather than right up at the NVZ (kitchen) line.

8.   How to prevent your opponent from lobbing?  Keep the ball deep to their backhands! Paddle up, be safe, and do not be that player who always lobs the seniors! 

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