Athletic Training: The Mistakes You're Making

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]If you're working hard and your game isn't improving, here's why. I'm going to give you five mistakes that people are making within their training, within their life that's holding them back from getting better at pickleball. And a little spoiler, we've all done this at some point. But I'm going to show you the five things that people are doing wrong and what you can do instead. If you don't know me, I'm that pickleball trainer and I train hundreds of amateur pickleball players around the world, including top players like Anna Bright and Patrick Smith, Tyler Black, Kate Fahey, Travis Shotmeyer, Jaime Martinez Vic, many of pro players, as well as I used to work in professional baseball for the Minnesota Twins. But now, I get to help pickleball players in person as well as remotely. And this is what I see people are doing wrong. Mistake number one is training pure cardio instead of intervals. So, what people like to do is go for a run because it's easy and it's accessible or hit the bike or do this steady state conditioning training instead of doing interval style training. What you need to be doing is playing and training, not always I I say this with a grain of salt, but like how the sport is somewhat played in intervals. It's in these short bouts of explosiveness, these short bouts of energy. At the end of the day, like it is like a full pickleball match and a full pickleball tournament, let's say, is a day full of zone two cardio, right?

[00:01:16]And having a good zone two capacity will be helpful. But what will really benefit you is doing sprint interval training and things that are more similar to the sport. So, instead of doing this steady state cardio, you should be doing more sprints. You should be doing more cuts with like hard bursts of work. Let's call it 10, 20, 30 seconds of work followed by 20, 30, 40, 60 seconds of rest. So, like hard bursts of energy and then a good amount of rest so that you can go hard again. So, less steady state, more interval style conditioning.

[00:01:50]Mistake number two is skipping agility work altogether. We work with hundreds of pickleball players around the world and so many people, if they are going to the gym, aren't doing speed and agility training, aren't doing cuts and reactive work. They're literally just playing the game. Maybe they go to the gym a little bit, but that's where we come in. So, you need to be incorporating agility work. If you don't know how to do agility work, go through my page.

[00:02:12]There's tons of different content exercises. I literally have a video, top 30 agility exercises for pickleball. You need to be incorporating this. Many people, I get on calls with these people, and they're like they don't want to go outside and just like go on the sidewalk or on the street and do it, which I don't know why. Like, no one cares. No one's watching you, you know?

[00:02:28]And many people are like, "Yeah, I can only do it like when I'm at the courts, and it's it's weird. I can't do it on the side of the court. People are staring at me." I'm like, "Dude, just be weird." Like, that's the only way you're going to get better. Like, be the weird person for a little bit, and then people are like, "Oh, yeah, like there's Sally doing her agility work." You know, just kind of grinding and getting better.

[00:02:43]Like, man, she's been doing that for like months. Like, that's cool. Like, just be the weird person. Like, go get it in. Just go through my stuff. You'll see videos on on what exactly to do.

[00:02:52]But, you need to be incorporating this twice a week. Mistake number three is static stretching before they're playing and/or no stretching, no movement at all before playing. I know this is hitting home with some of you. I can feel it like through this camera right now, but you need to be doing some kind of movement before you play. I know, it's not groundbreaking, but very few people are going out there and actually warming up. So, what I like to tell people is I don't want your first fast bout, your first sprint to be in a match. That's how we pop Achilles tendons. That's how we twist ankles. That's how we hurt our knees. That's how we just get injured in general. The risk-versus-reward ratio is just obvious to me. Like, I could take 5 minutes and hit a decent warm-up, increase my heart rate, increase blood flow, stretch some of the like muscles that need to be stretched dynamically, as well as prep my central nervous system, hit a sprint or two. 5 minutes, and I could dramatically decrease the risk of me getting injured. Or, I could save that 5 minutes and just start dinking, it just doesn't make sense to me. So, dynamic stretching, 5 minutes, that's all you need before you play.

[00:03:58]Don't static stretch. Do something 5 minutes long. Real quick, guys, if you're interested in optimizing your life just like we've done Anna Bright and hundreds of other players, drop down the show notes below, click the link, and let's get a call on the schedule.

[00:04:11]This is for people that are looking to optimize their life for pickleball. Your fitness, your nutrition, your health, your habits. You need a system, you need accountability, and you need somebody with you every step of the way. That's exactly what we're going to do. Drop down the show notes if you're interested, click the link, and let's get a call scheduled with my team. All right, guys, back to it. Mistake number four is ignoring single leg stability work. Many people will just train on two legs, right? You're not getting on one leg or not doing like a split stance work. Pickleball, while it's always on two legs, it's a change of direction and reaction-based movement where we're shifting weight from one leg to another.

[00:04:47]We're never like 50/50 split on both legs, right? It's always push, push, push, lean on the left, push off the left, back, come back this way, maybe flamingo, get a flick out of the air. It is a single leg sport for the most part, right? Like it's just like 80% on this leg, 20% here. Shift, move, 70 here, 30 here. Like that's kind of how it works, and we want to be really stable and strong on one leg so that we feel really good when we're in these motions. So, you need to be doing more single leg Romanian deadlifts, more single leg split squats, more reverse lunges. I can name so many. Go through my YouTube again, scroll through, there's tons of them in there. So, this will help because do you ever have like those days where maybe you drill like right side dinks and you're just shuffle, shuffle to the right, hit like a cross court roll a lot, and you feel like, "Whoa, you do hundreds of them maybe." And you feel like your gluteus sore, right?

[00:05:40]That's like you leaning all the way on that leg, really getting into that glute, internally rotating at the hip, and then coming back. Right? That's like a great example of like you really using single leg, right? I use that in quotes, but yeah, don't ignore this. Don't only train on two legs. Don't just squat.

[00:05:56]Don't just deadlift. Get dynamic and as functional and start doing more and more single leg variations. Comment below if you need some. I'll message you some.

[00:06:04]Mistake number five is you're training for the gym, not for the sport. I need you to train like an athlete. I need you to train specifically for the sport that you want to get better at. Many times you just have to like holistically train like an athlete and then cater a few things to the actual sport that you play for the most part, right? Like if if 70% of your training is like, all right, I'm going to train like an athlete and I'm going to not do these five things because of my sport. Let's call it like, I'm not going to Olympic lift because like my wrists are too vulnerable in pickleball and like too important and like wrist versus reward Olympic lifting like maybe it's not for me. I'm not going to do XYZ and I'm going to do these three things because I can pickle like it's super important forearm work and shoulder work and ankle work, whatever it may be. But you need to train like an athlete. You don't need to be going to the gym and training like a bodybuilding bro or doing just like hit classes or going to just F45. You know, if you're trying to just establish a routine and you you need something to follow and you need the accountability, maybe those things are great and it's a good entry and starting point, but if you want to train for specifically pickleball, you need to train like an athlete and you need to train specifically to your sport. So, it's recommended, right? Like three to four full body workouts per week. You're doing functional movements including single leg work within those. You have agility work included within those workouts. Sufficient mobility work personalized to your deficiencies, right? Maybe you're super deficient in like hip mobility more so than anything, right? You need to be training like an athlete so that you can just improve and see the improvements, get better and ultimately win more pickleball matches.

[00:07:40]So, don't go to the gym and hit back and bi's, hit chest, or just have a leg day.

[00:07:45]Start with full body workouts, [snorts] agility workouts, single leg workouts that are similar to the sport so that you can just ultimately get better at the sport. If you need to outsource any or all of this, click down in the show notes below. I have a full team. We work with hundreds of players across the world, including some of the best players in the world. I'd love to help you out. We can get on a call and see if it's a good fit. Thanks, guys.