Many high school sports coaches limit their conditioning to fitness, believing that if their players can withstand punishing workouts and long-distance running, they will be prepared for tough, three-game matches.
This is the wrong approach to training for pickleball, not only because it does not address all of the important attributes need for pickleball (including strength, agility, power, flexibility, speed and injury prevention), but because it actually trains the body in the wrong way.
Pickleball is NOT an Aerobic Sport!
While the recovery portion of pickleball does have an aerobic component (players do need an aerobic base), pickleball is a quick, high-intensity sport, and your training should focus on anaerobic sprint training.
Stamina
While interval training can help build an aerobic base, many coaches still like to start the first two or three weeks of the season with some long-distance running.
That’s not a good idea, as you’ll soon read.
If you’re going to encourage your players to do aerobic training, have them do it before the season starts to avoid interfering with their pickleball conditioning.
Once your players have their aerobic base, it’s important that they maintain it.
It’s more important to train your players’ ability to recover between points (and be ready for the next one), than it is to train them aerobically. Points often last less then 10 seconds in pickleball, but they can be very intense.
After you’ve concluded any aerobic training you wish to use in the beginning of the season (and preferably before the season starts), continue with high-intensity, short-duration conditioning drills.
Having players run from sideline to sideline for two or three minutes trying to run down and hit groundstrokes is not only frustrating, but not realistic. In fact, it’s detrimental to a player’s strokes if her or she is training past fatigue on a regular basis.
Aerobic training uses a different combination of glycogen and fat burning than occurs during a pickleball match. It also focuses on slow-twitch muscle fibers (rather than the fast-twitch fibers used in pickleball), and it trains slower neural impulses in the lower extremities.
Strength and Power
This type of training should be done early in your season. It works the body’s slow-twitch (slower) muscle fibers and should not be done during the competitive season.
Build muscles before or early in the season, then train them to be quick during the course of the season.
Speed, Agility, Quickness
These types of drills promote the type of footwork and movements that your players will be using during their matches. Depending on the intensity and duration of this type of training, it will also help your players develop and maintain their aerobic bases.
Flexibility
Stretch, stretch, stretch! Please see the article on stretching in this workbook. Doing the correct stretches before and after practice not only will make your players more flexible (which will improve their strokes), but it will also help prevent injury!
Principles of Conditioning
Physical education experts have developed six principles for conditioning:
1) Adaptation—Physical changes occur in the body to meet goals
2) Specificity—Adaptation is specific to ability
(anaerobic for pickleball)
3) Variety—Cross train so kids don’t burn out
(on court soccer, hockey, etc.)
4) Individuality—Respect different athletes’ physical attributes and needs
5) Progression—Ability improves with training (try charts to show progress)
6) Recovery—Within each session and day to day
If done correctly, conditioning can be fun for your players as they see themselves improving.
Running players into the ground not only doesn’t help pickleball players win, but it makes them come to dread practices.