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

What's Cooking in the Kitchen This Week:

• Why the Calmest Player Wins More Points

• The 40-Cent Snack That Helps Older Legs Fire Faster

• DRILL OF THE WEEK: Two Drops, One Drive

• Fitness Expert Glenn Dawson: How to Get Strong Hips & Avoid Lower Back Pain

• Selkirk Buys Bread & Butter - Here's What That Actually Means for Players

• PARTNERS: The First Reality Docuseries Inside Professional Pickleball Is Here

• Pickleball Community Mourns Plane Crash Victims and Supports Families

• HUMOR: When You’re Down 0-10 And You Just Scored

• Coach Mary: Slice Returns & Defending Slice Shots

🥷SKILLS

Why The Calmest Player
Wins More Points

Why the Calmest Player Wins More Points

Most points aren’t lost to great shots—they’re lost because the rally speeds up and players start rushing their contact. The ball comes back faster, the feet get lazy, and suddenly a simple reset turns into a net error or a pop-up.

The players who win more often aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest swings or the fastest hands. They’re the ones who look like the game is moving in slow motion. They aren’t calmer because of their personality; they’re calmer because of what they do before the ball even gets to them.

Calm on the court isn’t a feeling. It’s a set of visible habits you can copy.

What “calm” actually looks like

If you watch the most controlled players at your club, you’ll see the same things every time:

• They’re balanced before they hit.

• Their paddle is already up and out front.

• Their swings stay compact, even on fast balls.

• They choose neutral, high-percentage shots instead of forcing offense from bad positions.

None of this is magic. It’s preparation. Calm players build margin into their game so they don’t have to panic when the pace picks up.

💪 Health & Fitness Section

The 40-Cent Snack That Helps
Older Legs Fire Faster

After 60, your legs don't just get weaker — they get slower. Those are two different problems, and most players are only working on one of them. 

Strength you can train. But the snap — the explosive quickness that fires when you push off from a crouch or beat a short ball to the bounce — that fades on a different timeline, and it responds to different things. A 2026 clinical trial found one of those things costs about 40 cents a day. Most players already have it in their kitchen. 

A Plain Snack With a Surprising Result 

Researchers at Deakin University ran a 6-month trial on 120 adults aged 65 and older. Half ate 43 grams of peanut butter daily — about 3 tablespoons, roughly 40 cents' worth. The other half changed nothing. 

Honest disclosure: peanut butter did not improve walking speed. It did not build more lean muscle or a stronger grip. The study's main goal was walking speed, and on that measure, both groups ended up similar. 

But one test told a different story. 

The five-times sit-to-stand test — stand up from a chair and sit back down five times, as fast as you safely can — improved nearly 10% more in the peanut butter group. Their legs were generating about 11% more explosive punch. Researchers called both changes clinically meaningful. 

In plain English: their legs got faster at rising. 

🥷 DRILL OF THE WEEK

Two Drops, One Drive

Most players pick their third shot before the return even crosses the net, and that habit costs them. This drill breaks the one-shot mindset by training when to drop, when to drive, and how to actually read what the ball is giving you instead of defaulting under pressure.

Learn the patterns, return cues, and live decision-making that turn your third shot from a reflex into a real strategic weapon.

 🏋️ STAYING FIT with
GLENN & BRIANNA

How ToGet Strong Hips
& Avoid Lower Back Pain

🗞️ NEWS

Selkirk Buys Bread And Butter
Here’s What It Means For Players

Selkirk’s purchase of Bread & Butter may look like one paddle company buying another, but the bigger story is what it signals about the future of pickleball gear. Private equity money is moving in, indie paddle brands are becoming acquisition targets, and players may soon see changes in distribution, pricing, certification, and which brands stay truly independent.

Read the full breakdown to see why this deal could matter long after the headline fades.

🤩 ENTERTAINMENT EWS

PARTNERS: The First Reality
Series Inside Professional
Pickleball is Here

Pro pickleball finally got its reality-show treatment, and the pitch is pure chaos: partner swaps, breakups, rivalries, mind games, and six episodes dropped at once. The series follows the PPA’s biggest names through a season where what happens off court may be just as messy as what happens on it.

Watch the feuds, fallout, and high-stakes partner drama behind pro pickleball’s first docuseries.

👏 COMMUNITY NEWS

Pickleball Community Mourns
Plane Crash Victims &
Supports Families

Five Amarillo pickleball players boarded a plane for a tournament and never made it home, leaving one tight-knit community grieving friends who were far more than doubles partners. In the aftermath, courts have turned into candlelight vigils, meal trains, and a nationwide outpouring of support for families facing unimaginable loss.

Read how the Amarillo pickleball community is honoring its own and rallying around the families left behind, click here…

🏓 HUMOR

RALLY RUNDOWN:
LOCAL HIGHLIGHTS

COLUMBIA: Pickleball Tournament Raises Money for Girls in Youth Sports
TAMPA, FL: Man in Jail Agrees to Demolish Backyard Guest House After Court Denies Appeal in Neighbor Dispute
GRAND TRAVERSE COUNTY, MI: Volunteers Clear Silt and Mud From Flood-Hit Pickleball Courts
BRITISH COLUMBIA: Youth Pickleball Growing on the Coast
Toledo, OH: Toledo Hosting Introductory Pickleball Clinics at City Parks This Summer
HALFMOON, NY: Pickleball Event Supports Men Wear Pink Cancer Campaign
BOULDER, CO: Boulder Breaking Ground On Major New Pickleball Complex
TUCSON, AZ: Pickleball Players Celebrate Udall Fee Reversal


DO YOU HAVE LOCAL NEWS TO SHARE? REACH OUT TO US AT
[email protected] and send us a link to your story!

  💪 Slice Returns &
Defending Slice Shots

We have concentrated on topspin in many of my articles, so this week, let’s focus on slice. Specifically, let’s look at serve return with slice.  Be sure to watch the videos several times.

Tanner Tomasi:  Forehand Slice - this is a great simple demo.

• Paddle Face Up, and slightly closed.

• You want the ball to spend as much time as possible on your paddle – that generates the most amount of spin.

• Start high, finish high to low, using your chest.

• The power for this shot comes from moving forward as you contact, from your body.

Tanner Tomasi:  Backhand slice – Most effective on Serve Return.

·    Footwork is most important!  Your body should be closed, or sideways.

·    Hit the ball with your shoulder.

·    Think gradual, go down the mountain.  No chop!

·    Throw yourself into the shot, using your core, rather than your arm.   Jump into the shot.

Tanner Tomasi invites Mari Humberg to help teach slice on the returns.

·    Continental grip, same for both sides.  (Handshake grip)

·    You must contact in front of you, so back up when you see it is deep.  You need space!  Step into this shot!

·    You want to flow through this shot.  Pause, then move!

·    High to low, you can slice from a higher point also.  This is important!  If the serve is deep, you must move back so you can attack through the ball.

Mari gives us 3 good things, and then 3 bad things:

Good Things:

1.  Consistency.   This will become one of your “go to” shots.

2.  Creates pressure on your opponent.  Makes them get under the ball, and they will have trouble dropping the slice return.  They will have to drive it instead.

3.   Check out Mari’s back arm on the backhand slice – she incorporates her shoulders with the off arm going back.

Bad Things:

·    Gives the opponent topspin.

·    If you do not practice this shot, it will be inconsistent. Get rid of wrist movement!  You do not want the ball to float!

·    The Slice return is slower, so you might have more time to get to the Kitchen.

·    In women’s doubles, Mari uses more slice.  In mixed, she does not see it as an advantage.  The guys will drive it with topspin.

How to Read the Slice?

·    Slice hits and skips.  Short hops will not help you.

·    You will need to move back, use a short backswing, get low, and incorporate your body in the execution of the shot.   Move through the ball!

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