All of the pickleball drills that I will outline in this article are all able to be practiced alone.
As you may be restricted by the amount of space that you have to practice in, these have been split into drills that can be carried out on the court and those that can be practiced at home.
Solo Pickleball Drills For The Court
Whenever you are fortunate enough to have a court to practice on, there are countless drills that will help you to train your pickleball skills.
However, if you do not have direct access to a pickleball court, then you can also use a tennis court to practice these drills. They are as follows:
1. Practice Serving
As your pickleball team will only be able to score when you are serving, it makes far more sense to put as much practice into this area as you can.
Fortunately, that is relatively easy to do when practicing alone.
Practicing your serve is one of the main ways to enhance your confidence levels and overall accuracy on the court itself.
If you are a relatively new player, you may wish to practice by simply hitting the ball with accuracy.
You should choose a specific point on the line or a specific target on the court.
If you played pickleball for some time, now is the best team to practice your depth. As well as aiming for a specific target on the court, you should try to increase your speed while hitting the ball.
While this may not be as fun as playing the game itself, you will be more accurate the next time you are playing in a match.
2. Become Comfortable With The Court
Learning to play a game like pickleball can be compared to learning how to play an instrument. Whenever you are starting out, there is a lot of information to take in.
As such, you may feel as though you are playing in slow motion. However, as your practice increases, you will begin to do things automatically, improving your confidence and comfort on the court by proxy.
This also applies to anyone who has played the sport for a long period of time.
At first, you may have felt overwhelmed by all of the game’s rules including knowing where to position yourself, which shot to use and being aware of your partner etc.
However, as you improve your game, these things will become natural to you.
One of the easiest means of speeding up the learning process is to practice accuracy without the pressure of a game.
By removing the number of things that you are required to assess, you will be able to focus on enhancing your level of play inherently.
Thus, you should use this instrumental solo practice time to get a feel for the court and ascertain how far away the kitchen is from your usual position.
You will never need to be concerned about stepping in the non-volley zone again once you have mastered the court!
3. Advanced Solo Dinking Practice
Advanced players will still greatly benefit from hitting the courts on their own.
You may feel as though you need a partner in order to practice specific techniques like dinking. However, it is entirely possible to do it alone!
You simply need to stand at the end of the net and dink the ball over the net before running to the other side in order to dink it in return.
This will have you working out considerably, which will also enhance your level of fitness for the game.
While beginner players can also practice this technique on their own, it is arguably more beneficial for advanced players to practice in this manner.
Pickleball Drills For A Single Person That Can Be Done Anywhere
These solo drills require nothing more than a wall. You will ideally need to place some tape at the height of a traditional pickleball net on the wall itself. These techniques can be used as lighter practice drills:
1. Volley Accuracy
In order to increase the accuracy of your volleying while playing this sport, you should focus on this drill.
You merely need to mark a square or specific spot on a wall using tape. After this, you should stand just outside of the kitchen area and see how many times you are able to hit your target.
After a little while, you will be amazed at how quickly your overall accuracy has improved. You should try to avoid forgetting to move around as improving your angles is imperative.
2. Forehand/Backhand Volleying
In order to further enhance your pickleball volley game, you will need to improve your reflexes and reaction times.
In order to enhance your level of play, you will need to accurately deliver forehand and backhand shots. In order to practice these, you should stand seven feet from a wall (which is a kitchen-size distance).
Whenever you are ready to start, serve the ball to the wall using a forehand shot. Then, when it bounces back towards you, hit it back using a backhand shot, and alternate these accordingly until you miss.
This fast drill will help to enhance your speed and accuracy when groundstroking.
If you are able to do so, use some tape in order to make the net line on your wall. This will help you to obtain even greater accuracy when playing.
3. Legwork Practice
While the majority of pickleball drills will focus on your shots, serves and other forms of arm-work, it is imperative that you do not forget about training your legs (see also ‘Does Pickleball Help Build Glutes?‘).
You should take some time to practice lateral movements that are required within the non-volley zone.
Dinking is a crucial technique as you advance and you will also greatly enhance your kitchen play by improving your lateral movements.
Conclusion
To conclude, this article has outlined the numerous drills that you can implement when practicing pickleball alone.
I hope that you have found this article to be insightful and informative. Thank you for reading.
