Drilling vs. Playing: How to really improve

One of the most common questions that pro players will receive is, “How often do you drill vs. play games”. Drilling is an absolute necessity if one is looking to improve quickly, and for the most part, it seems that amateur players ignore this fact. This is because games are simply more fun to play whereas drilling can be tedious and boring. Not to mention the fact that it may be hard for some players to find others that are willing to spend more than twenty minutes in a row hitting dinks back and forth. But if you are really looking to improve how often should you be drilling? The answer is, somewhere close to 50% of the time you spend on court.

When you play games, you will only hit each shot a certain number of times. You are simply not getting enough reps per game in order to improve on a certain shot. It’s like any other sport you played growing up. You practice each week with a certain set of drills and then play the game on the weekend. There could be some practice games involved, but within each practice game are certain plays in which you work on. Pickleball culture has completely avoided the actual “practice” of sport because of how easy it is to go out there and play. By all means, I am not encouraging anyone to drill for 6 hours a week. But if you are one of those people who is actually trying to improve, it is vitally important that you spend a large chunk of time narrowly focused on repeatedly practicing specific shots.