The Reset Fake: Make Your Soft Game Dangerous

Afternoon Game Energy, New Wall Drill, MLP Merger, Paddle Bans, Fundamentals from Ava, Overheads & More

Author

FIT PICKLER
April 02, 2026

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

What's Cooking in the Kitchen This Week:

  • The Reset Fake: How to Make Your Soft Game Dangerous

  • How to Arrive at Afternoon Doubles Feeling Fresh

  • DRILL OF THE WEEK: Wall “Corner King”: Turn Wall Time into a Precision Duel

  • Fitness Expert Glenn Dawson: Rope Cable Kickback (Proper Form)

  • MLP Announces Partnership With Pro Senior League Champions Series

  • UPA Bans Proton Paddles From PPA Tour, MLP; Uncertainty Looms For Players

  • Skip the Flash: Ava Ignatowich Breaks Down Pickleball's Core Fundamentals

  • How Longtime Friends Turned Love of Racket Sports into Pickleball Powerhouse

  • HUMOR: When Do You Usually Play Pickleball

  • Coach Mary: Overheads!

🥷SKILLS

The Reset Fake: How To
Make Your Soft Game Dangerous

Which One Will It Be Today???

Most players treat the reset like a surrender.

You’re stretched, under pressure, somewhere in the transition zone or defending at the kitchen — and the goal is simple: soften the ball, survive, and get back into the point.

And that works… until your opponents realize that’s all you’re doing.

When every tough ball gets the same soft reset, good players stop worrying. They lean forward. They close space. They start hunting the next ball.

That’s where the reset fake changes everything.

Instead of just neutralizing the rally, you start controlling it.

What the Reset Fake Is
The reset fake is showing your opponent a soft, defensive reset… and then sending them something else.

Not a wild speed-up. Not a risky swing.

Just a controlled change at the last moment.

💪 Health & Fitness Section

How To Arrive at Afternoon
Doubles Feeling Fresh

Good As New!

It’s 2:15pm. You’re up at the net. The ball comes in soft — a dink you’ve returned a thousand times — and somehow it clips the tape. Your hands were there. Your footwork was fine. But your head was somewhere else entirely.

That’s not a paddle problem. And it’s not your fitness either.

What’s Going On in Your Brain
Every hour you’re awake, your brain produces a chemical called adenosine. Think of it as a slow-building fatigue signal. By mid-afternoon — about seven hours after you woke up — it’s built up enough to slow your reactions, blur your focus, and take the edge off your timing.

Most players reach for coffee. That helps. But only halfway.

Caffeine doesn’t clear adenosine. It blocks the brain receptors where adenosine normally lands. The chemical is still there — it just can’t attach. You feel sharper for a while. Then the caffeine wears off, those receptors open back up, and all that backed-up adenosine floods in at once.

That’s the crash. That’s why a second coffee at 1pm can leave you feeling worse by 3pm, not better — like you borrowed someone else’s body right when afternoon doubles starts.

So if coffee can’t clear adenosine, what does?

🥷 DRILL OF THE WEEK

The “Corner King” Drill:
Turn Wall Time Into a Precision Duel

You Call That Aiming!

Most wall sessions fall apart into mindless rhythm, just keeping the ball alive without any real target. This one flips that completely by turning the wall into a two-spot game, where every shot has to land inside a small square or the rally ends. It sounds simple until you realize how quickly your “control” disappears when the margin shrinks.

Set up the two-box challenge and see how many you can actually hit in a row before the streak breaks.

 🏋️ STAYING FIT with
GLENN & BRIANNA

Rope Cable Kickback
(Proper Form)

🏓 PRO NEWS

MLP Announces Partnership
With Pro Senior League
Champion Series

Across The Great Divide

A league built around the sport’s top pros is now making space for a 50-plus division, and not as a side project. Major League Pickleball is folding senior team competition into its official schedule, rebranding it under the same banner, and putting it alongside its main events. That’s less about nostalgia and more about where the sport sees long-term growth.

See how the new Champions Series fits into the MLP calendar and where it shows up this season.

🏓 GEAR NEWS

UPA Bans Proton Paddles
From PPA Tour, MLP-
Uncertainty Looms For Players

From Three Quarks to Two Anti-Up Quarks And One Anti-Down Quark

Pro players woke up to find one of the sport’s major paddle brands suddenly banned. Proton is out of both the PPA Tour and MLP over unresolved debts, forcing sponsored players to scramble for new equipment right before upcoming events. It’s a business issue that just turned into a competitive one.

See which players are impacted and how this could shake up upcoming tournaments.
Click here…

 🥷 SKILLS

Skip The Flash:
Ava Ignatowich Breaks Down
Pickleball’s Core Fundamentals

Getting Back To Basics!

Ava Ignatowich isn’t adding anything new to your game, she’s stripping it down. No flashy winners, no extra spin, just movement in the transition zone, dinks with a purpose, and clear roles on each side of the court. It’s the kind of advice that sounds obvious until you realize how rarely it actually shows up in rec play.

See the specific drills and patterns she uses to turn “basic” into points you stop giving away, click here:

👏 COMMUNITY NEWS

How Longtime Friends Turned
Love of Racket Sports Into
Pickleball Powerhouse

Pickleball Powerhouse

Two tennis friends came back from COVID, and couldn’t find a single pickleball court in New York, so, they decided to build one in Times Square. Now they’ve got a 37,000-square-foot club on the eighth floor of a historic building, with a bar, restaurant, and packed courts that still can’t keep up with demand. The wild part is how they’re turning office space into one of the most in-demand playing environments in the country.

Step inside the Times Square club and see how they turned an office floor into a packed pickleball destination, click here…

🏓 HUMOR

When Do You Usually
Play Pickleball?

When Indeed?

🧭 COMMUNITY NEWS

RALLY RUNDOWN:
LOCAL HIGHLIGHTS

HOLDING COURT with
COACH MARY

  💪 Overheads! 

I still see players who have taken lessons facing the net, off balance, and not using rotation to attack with their overhead. This is one of the reasons we get injuries on the Pickleball court. Let’s fix this!

Zane demonstrates why you need to use your non-dominant arm. You need to turn and rotate your body into the contact. You should not be facing the net when you execute overheads! Check out this simple video..

love Callie’s short but simple videos! She demonstrates the wrong way, which is facing forward, and then the correct way, turned sideways, scratching your back with your paddle, and pointing up with your non – dominant arm. Check it out.

Tanner Tomasi introduces Bobbie Oshiro, who is rated 5.9, showing us her signature shot – the overhead smash. Bobbie shows how to turn sideways, then go to “trophy position” with your paddle behind your head (like scratch your back), and then move your feet by sliding to position to contact the ball out in front of you, snapping your wrist on follow-through. Great demo.

Jordan Briones offers two videos to correct hitting overheads into the net, and to hit stronger overheads.

· Jordan demos that if you are hitting into the net, your paddle may be facing down, and you may be taking it too far out in front or too early. Make sure your off hand is pointing up to the sky so you will reach up!

· Next, he talks about proper footwork to get behind the shot. You should not feel like you are arching your back and contacting behind you. Instead, slide/shuffle back so that you can contact in front of you.

· Key point: Jordan says you should try to not only take the ball in front of you, but also a bit to the side, in front of your dominant shoulder, to get more rotation and power. Follow-through across your body and use your off arm to generate more momentum and power.

Not Yet a Subscriber? Click Below to Get Our Newsletter Every Week - Its FREE