How does switching paddles impact your game?

What’s up, guys?! Hope you are doing well! I’ve got a question for you below that I would love you to answer.

What is useful and not useful to you in a review?

If you guys wouldn’t mind, I’d love if you could respond to this email and answer the following questions:

• What are the top 3 MOST USEFUL things that you get from a review video?

• What are the top 3 LEAST useful things you see happening in review videos?

Examples of ideas:

• Paddle specs (swing weight, twist weight, RPM etc)

• Comparison to other paddles

• Deep dives into paddle constructions (materials, how they are laid up, background of how the paddle was designed)

• Value assessment

• etc

Those are just just a few ideas to give you an idea.

I’m always trying to improve our reviews to make them more useful for you, the consumer. So I would love to get your feedback so we can do more of what you want to see and less of what you don’t!

How does switching paddles impact your game?

The discussion below is primarily targeted at people who want to improve quickly, and not for people who play casually.

I’ve discussed this before, but I wanted share some thoughts for people who are always chasing the latest and greatest paddle out there.

There’s nothing wrong with being excited about the latest tech or how a new paddle plays. In fact, I think it’s super fun and that’s why we do what we do at Pickleball Studio. So, just know that if you are a big gear enthusiast, there’s nothing wrong with that.

HOWEVER

The thing I want to challenge people on, is whether a new paddle is actually making you better or not.

Let’s face it, no matter what paddle comes out, it’s very rare to find one that checks every single box for you. It’s always something small. Maybe the handle length isn’t long enough, the shape isn’t your preference, the handle isn’t shaped the way you want, the swing weight is just out of your ideal zone, or the sweet spot isn’t big enough.

There’s always that small 5-15% that makes you go “Man…maybe the next one will give me everything”.

I’m not saying that paddle doesn’t exist. Some people WILL find the perfect paddle, but my suggestion is this:

Instead of chasing a paddle that does 100% of what you want it to, you should find a paddle that does 80-90% and stick with it until it isn’t usable anymore.

People would improve much faster at Pickleball if they stuck to a paddle that does almost everything perfect for them rather than chasing and switching to a new paddle every few weeks or even every month.

Think about it, every time you switch, you have to make adjustments to your muscle memory for dinks, resets, drives, spin capability, swing weight, and more. Bouncing around different paddles means you are constantly throwing off your muscle memory in small ways.

If I wasn’t switching paddles all the time for work, I would definitely be a better player than I am now. Thankfully I’ve gotten to a point where it’s reasonably easy for me to bounce between paddle types (Control, all court, power) and not have it severely impact my game, but I know that if I could just stick with one paddle and only use that all the time, I would be improving faster than I currently am.

So, the next time you are considering purchasing a new paddle, just think about whether or not it is actually the paddle holding you back or if it’s just the marketing promise that’s getting you excited about adding an extra 5% to your game.

The podcast is officially back

• Watch part 1 (paddle talk)

• Watch part 2 (USAP paddle testing discussion)

This week we brought the podcast back after our month long hiatus. We split the podcast into two separate videos because we wanted to make sure people could easily find both the topics. The first part covers many of the new paddle releases while the second one focuses on what we learned at the USAP media day and what happened with the Ronbus Ripple.

If you are interested in a fantastic breakdown of the entire media day, Jon from SpeakPickleball did a full blog breakdown that won’t take you hours to read here.