One Hour Session Plan

Quick Look

• Four blocks: warm up, focus area, the first four drill, then something competitive.
• Warm up runs about 15 minutes and covers drops, drives, overheads, and volleys.
• Focus area is 20 to 30 minutes on one thing you picked in advance.
• First four drill practices the serve, return, third, and fourth shots without letting it turn into a rally.
• Finish with roughly 10 minutes of competitive play.
• Overheads go in the warm up. Most pickleball warm ups skip them entirely and that is a mistake.
• Nearly everything in the warm up is cooperative. The competition is saved for the end.
• You need two people and that is it.

How This Session Works

The session is built in four blocks that always run in the same order. Warm up broadly, then narrow to one skill, then put the skills back into the actual sequence of a point, then compete.

Rough timing for the hour:

• Warm up: about 15 minutes
• Focus area: 20 to 30 minutes
• First four drill: whatever is left in the middle, usually 10 to 15 minutes
• Competitive finish: about 10 minutes

The warm up is the fixed part. The focus area is the part that changes session to session.

Block 1: The Warm Up

This is our traditional warm up and it takes about 15 minutes. It moves from soft to hard and from the kitchen back to the baseline and up again.

Drops, Version One

Setup. One person at midcourt, one person at the net.

How it runs. Hit about 10 or 11 shots to get loose. Then the midcourt player starts dropping the ball into the kitchen while the net player cooperatively feeds it back. Hit about 11 forehand drops, then 11 backhand drops. Work both sides. We usually hit this one straight on.

Focus. Getting the drop stroke going on both wings before anything else happens.

Drops, Version Two

Setup. One person at the baseline, one at the kitchen.

How it runs. The baseline player tries to drop the ball. If the drop lands in the kitchen, they earn a half step forward. The kitchen player cooperatively hits it back. Keep going, half a step at a time, until the dropping player has advanced all the way to the kitchen. Then the players swap: the one who was at the kitchen goes back to the baseline and starts dropping.

Focus. This is the whole transition game in one drill. You are not just hitting drops, you are earning your way to the net with them, which is exactly what the drop is for.

Drives

Setup. One person at the net, one at the baseline.

How it runs. The baseline player works on their drive. The net player volleys, trying to hit deep.

Focus. The driver gets reps on the drive. The volleyer gets reps handling pace and keeping the ball deep. Both jobs are real.

Overheads

Setup. One person at the baseline tossing, the other taking overheads.

How it runs. About 11 of them.

Focus. Here is why this is in the warm up. In tennis we always practiced overheads during the warm up. In pickleball it is strange, but when most people warm up all they do is stand at the kitchen and hit 25 kitchen shots and call it done. Then a lob goes up in the first game and the shot is cold. Putting overheads in the warm up fixes that for the price of about two minutes.

Volleys

Setup. Both players at the net.

How it runs. Start with heels inside the kitchen and do a cooperative hands drill. Being that close makes the ball come back super quick, which is the point. After 10 or 11, step back outside the kitchen and hit somewhere between 11 and 20 volleys, now focusing on a good athletic base: knees bent, on the toes.

Then run the figure 8. One person hits everything up the line, the other hits everything cross court. Switch roles and run it again so both players get both patterns.

After about five in the pattern, one person can start putting real pace on it. Do a few rounds of that.

Focus. Quick hands first, then base and posture, then pattern, then pace. In that order.

Block 2: Focus Area

How it runs. Pick one thing. A backhand drive, a backhand volley, whatever you have decided needs work. Pull a few drills from that section and spend 20 to 30 minutes on it.

Focus. This is the only block with a variable subject, and it is where actual improvement happens. The warm up keeps you sharp. The focus area is what changes your game. Decide what it is before you get to the court so you are not standing around negotiating it.

Block 3: The First Four Drill

This is my favorite drill in the session. You are playing out the first four or five shots of a point and then stopping.

Setup. Play it cross court as skinny singles.

How it runs.

• Serve. The server focuses on getting the serve deep.
• Return. The returner hits a solid, deep return and sprints to the net so they are in position for the fourth ball.
• Third. If the serving side got a good deep ball back, which they should have, they hit a third shot drive.
• Fourth. The returner split steps, takes the fourth as a volley, and hits it deep.
• Fifth. The serving side can hit a fifth shot drop if they got there.

That is the end of the rep. You could add a sixth if you want, but we deliberately try not to let this turn into a rally.

Focus. Nearly every point is decided in these four shots, and almost nobody practices them in sequence. The deep serve sets up the deep third. The deep return buys the time to get to the net. The fourth volley is where the point actually gets taken. Practicing them together is different from practicing them separately, which is why the drill stops before the rally starts.

Block 4: Competitive Finish

How it runs. Play something competitive for the last 10 minutes or so. We often play the 7 11 game.

Focus. Everything you just worked on, with a score attached. Cooperative drilling builds the shot and competitive play tells you whether you own it. Ending here also means you walk off the court having actually played, not just fed balls.

Key Takeaways

• Same four blocks every time: warm up, focus area, first four, competitive finish.
• Budget roughly 15 minutes for the warm up and 20 to 30 for the focus area.
• Warm up in order: drops, drives, overheads, volleys. Soft to hard.
• Put overheads in the warm up. Standing at the kitchen for 25 shots is not a warm up.
• Use the half step drop drill to practice earning your way to the net, not just hitting drops.
• Decide your focus area before you show up.
• The first four drill is the highest value block. Deep serve, deep return and sprint, third shot drive, fourth volley deep, optional fifth shot drop, then stop.
• Do not let the first four drill become a rally. That defeats the purpose.
• Finish competitive so you leave having played.