Pickleball Therapy

In this engaging discussion, Ty Woody, a sports performance coach specializing in pickleball, shares his insights on optimizing performance and preventing injuries. He emphasizes the crucial role of strength training and warm-up routines for all players. Ty reveals how professional athletes manage recovery and stress while playing at high levels. He provides practical tips for amateur players on incorporating weight training into their routine, ensuring they enjoy the sport long-term.

How can we gatekeep information and use that to best enjoy our pickleball journey? A lot of times when we're exposed to information in an area we're not sure what the right answer is, like pickleball, we're likely to err on the side of letting the information in. This happens because we're just curious or we heard something and we're not sure how to discern that it's not correct for us.The algorithm dictates for you information (as it knows you better than you know yourself) and even well-meaning advice from friends at the courts may not best suit our specific needs. All that information about pickleball can be overwhelming to sift through.Ask yourself, given the framework of the game and the objectives I'm trying to accomplish, what's going to help me the most play the sport of pickleball? The answer to this question will help you set clear goals for your practice.Gatekeeping your journey is as important as gatekeeping your information, perhaps even more important and will have an impact on your improvement journey on the court.

What Does it Mean to Perform? How many games do you expect to win the next time you play pickleball? All of them? Most of them? Half? Extend that out: what win percentage would you be satisfied with over your pickleball playing career? Would you be happy with winning about 50% of the time? It is common to react with a “No” here. After all, why should 50% be an acceptable result. But reflect on that for a moment. If your win rate is more than 50%, what happens to the win rates of your fellow players (most of whom are your friends)? If your win rate for all time is 80%, that does not leave a lot of winning for anyone else. Seems odd, doesn’t it? Having a better perspective on what it means to perform – in terms of our results – can help us avoid needless pitfalls in how we feel about ourselves and our pickleball experience. We explore this in more depth during this week’s episode of the Pickleball Therapy podcast. Find it on Apple, Spotify, or at BetterPickleball.com under “Free Insights.” See you there.Check out our offerings and get on our email list; https://betterpickleball.com/Coach Pete's book; https://betterpickleball.com/resources/

In 2025, the rules change has a little bit of impact on the non-volley zone when the volley starts. Basically the volley included the swing of the paddle before the ball was struck. Rules change in pickleball can rob us in different ways leading to unnecessary stress, conflicts on the court or detract us from the enjoyment of the game. In this episode we also discuss how to deal with criticism and how we determine, at the first level, whether what's happening is a criticism or constructive feedback. Nobody likes criticism, especially criticism without a point. Before you consider something being criticism, be aware of a couple of things; i) What we think of something is a result of how we interpret it in our own mind. That's the everything.  ii) Ask yourself, why is this criticism as opposed to feedback? Why am I looking at it that way? iii) Consider the source and the context or the environment in which the feedback is being provided. iv) Focus on the positive aspects of feedback that will help if you are feeling criticized about your pickleball or anything else. Join our Camps; https://betterpickleball.com/campsBetter Pickleball Academy; https://betterpickleball.com/academy/Join us inside the Pickleball System Class; https://betterpickleball.com/system/Conveniently store all your essential equipment in one place using The Titan Ball Machine; https://titanballmachines.com/?sca_ref=5916769.Ghuy0VgJ0B

Imagine having the same stats about your game like the pros. Things like:How fast is my serve? How accurate is my forehand? Am I making more mistakes on my backhand? In this podcast episode podcast we feature Swupnil Sahai, co-founder and CEO of Swingvision. SwingVision is an app that provides such stats by offering AI-assisted game analysis.The app provides real-time stats, tracking elements like ball speed and trajectory, and generates game highlights. It includes additional features such as automatic line calling and a challenge system using an Apple Watch.The app is optimized for standalone pickleball courts, with adaptability for courts overlaid on tennis and basketball courts.  Get a $100 Swing Stick for FREE with a year of SwingVision Pro HERE (and FREE international shipping!): https://swing.vision/r/betterpickleball

At the beginning of the year, we have all that enthusiasm and most of us are filled with hope, promise and a lot of excitement for the coming year. When players set resolutions or goals for the year, it's very easy to fall into the trap of trying to tackle too many things at once. In this episode we're going to talk about how to actually achieve your goals, take those New Year's resolutions that may be rambling around in your brain, and to actually achieve some(if not all) of them when it comes to your pickleball game.This will prevent a situation where we either don't take any action or we take very inconsistent action and by the end of January or perhaps by the end of February, most of the resolutions are by the wayside. Start with small, consistent actions. Here's a way for you to do that;i) Begin by taking a look at your pickleball game right now. - Pull out a piece of paper and just draw a line down the middle. On the left side of the paper, try and do an honest assessment of where you are right now as a pickleball player. This should feature the different parts of your game. - Do a little visioning and think of who you would like to be as a pickleball player at the end of 2025. Write that all down as well. What would you like to have? - Then, pick out one thing on the list, that one most important thing that you're going to start closing the gap on. Check out Better Pickleball Camps; https://betterpickleball.com/pickleball-camps/Eight-week fitness challenge; https://betterpickleball.com/pickleball-fitness-challenge 

Happy 2025! Let's think about our progress journey through pickleball as worth experiencing and enjoying to see the game better. Because here's the fact, there's really nowhere to arrive at and there's no magic place to get to.Embrace the infinity of your journey and try and avoid pestering yourself with the, 'Are we there yet?' question.Take a minute to imagine yourself as the player you want to be in the future. It could be a six months from now player, six years from now, however long you want to do it, and however much you want to add to yourself as a player. Picture that player for a moment. What does that player look like?Placing yourself in the future you and who you want to be or grow helps us avoid being dissatisfied with where we are now because we want something more in the future. You are in charge of how much you want to grow as a pickleball player and the game will always have something to teach you. Now to the soft game- it's valuable and useful as a tool when you're playing. Consider adding it into your game or working on it more. It's the central feature of our game and continues to be the most reductive form of our game. Check out our upcoming live events; https://betterpickleball.com/events/ Get you paddles from Pickleball Central. Use code BetterPB0125 for 10% off qualifying items; https://betterpickleball.com/resources/Our Pickleball system course; https://betterpickleball.com/system/Better Pickleball Academy; https://betterpickleball.com/academy/

Ben Johns is no longer going to play with his brother, Collin, and is looking for a partner for 2025. It's a little bit sad in the sense that they're brothers, they play together and I imagine they love pickleball.There's been a lot of opinions about who would be the best partner for Ben for 2025 and I thought it was a good time to talk about picking a perfect partner. In this episode we'll also talk about your journey, getting ready for the new year and what you want for yourself in 2025. How do you pick a partner? What do you look for? If you play rec play, you can also use also these ideas conceptually; i) Shared Goals. Be on the same page so you can put in the work necessary to achieve your objectives.ii) Compatible play energy. Approach the game from an energy standpoint as you flow through different situations for better partnership.iii) Complimentary skills. This applies more to competitive situations, although in rec you can just be aware of it. For instance if you have two players that are super hyper aggressive, attacking everything all the time, that's probably not going to be ideal. Same case applies when the two players super passive.There's other factors you can consider in your decision making that are not strategically driven in terms of chances for success in partnership from a pickleball standpoint, but are certainly super important, such as good partnership.The key takeaway here is doubles pickleball is a team sport, such as basketball, thus needs the performance of the individual player like being able to hit your dink, your serve, return, volleys etc.Better Pickleball Academy; https://betterpickleball.com/academy/Purchase your paddle at Pickleball Central,  Use code BetterPB1224 for 10% off qualifying items; https://pickleballcentral.com/?rfsn=8407285.cad0f5

Think of a perfect world as one that includes adversities because things will occur to us that are not in line with what we would hope or like. That in and of itself is the perfect world. How do you deal with adversity when you're working on your game or when you're playing? i) If you're working on your pickleball improvement, let's say you're working on your serve and you have a tendency to pull your paddle across your body (a very common mechanical flaw in players' games), understand that that's part and parcel of the game ii) Allow yourself to not lose sight of the positives of the journey itself. You're going to have to deal with obstacles as part of your process to get to where you want to go, but that's just how it is.I'll relate this to a personal story that we'll tie it into pickleball where a lot of times we focus so much on the final painted room, and lose sight of the moments that we're painting, the seeing it develop and trying to do your best.In this episode I also share with you ways of thinking about your process that make it seem more manageable and use it for your benefit if you haven't done something before.Be part of our email list; https://betterpickleball.com/New camp dates in 2025; https://betterpickleball.com/pickleball-camps/Check out our resources for the Pickleball Central link and discount code; https://betterpickleball.com/resources/Move Your DNA by Katie Bowman; https://www.amazon.com/Move-Your-DNA-Restore-Movement/dp/0989653943

You can register for the class and find the Pickleball Central link and code at BetterPickleball.com.Have a great week and we will see you this Friday for our regular episode - Pilling: It is a thing :).