Pickleball is one of the fastest-growing sports around, attracting everyone from recreational players looking for a fun way to stay active through to highly competitive athletes.
While it may not always look as physically demanding as some other court sports, pickleball places significant demands on the body. Quick lateral movements, sudden changes of direction, reaching, lunging, rotating and reacting to unpredictable shots can all place stress on your ankles, knees, shoulders and elbows.
If you want to become more serious about pickleball, don’t just stick to the court. Build your body and physical capacity through specific gym-based training.
The right exercises can help improve your ability to move around the court, generate power and potentially reduce your risk of injury.
Why Pickleball Players Should Train in the Gym
Playing pickleball is important for improving your skills, tactics and understanding of the game. However, simply playing more doesn’t necessarily develop all the physical qualities needed to perform at your best.
A strong pickleball player needs more than a good serve and reliable backhand. You also need:
- Single-leg strength to lunge, push off and control your body
- Lateral power to move quickly across the court
- Rotational strength and power for hitting and changing direction
- Upper-body strength and power to control and accelerate the paddle
- Landing and deceleration ability to cope with sudden stops and changes of direction
- Reaction ability to respond to unpredictable shots
This becomes particularly important when considering some of the common issues experienced by court-sport athletes, including ankle injuries, knee injuries and tennis elbow.
Gym training should not replace playing pickleball. Instead, it should complement your time on the court by building the physical qualities that allow you to play harder, move better and tolerate the demands of the game.
1. Bulgarian Split Squat
The Bulgarian split squat is one of my favourite exercises for pickleball players.
Pickleball involves a significant amount of single-leg loading. Whether you’re lunging towards a short ball, pushing laterally to reach a wide shot or decelerating before changing direction, one leg is often responsible for producing or absorbing a large amount of force.
Why it helps
Bulgarian split squats can help develop:
- Single-leg strength
- Quadriceps and glute strength
- Hip and knee control
- Stability during split-stance positions
- Strength through positions similar to lunging on the court
Rather than only building strength with traditional two-leg exercises, pickleball players should also be comfortable producing force independently through each leg.
How to use it: Start with bodyweight or dumbbells and progressively increase the load as strength improves. Focus on good control through the lowering phase and maintaining alignment through the hip, knee and foot.
2. Box Drops and Box Jumps
Pickleball players don’t need to perform endless complicated plyometric drills. However, learning to absorb force, land effectively and produce power can be highly valuable.
Box Drops
A box drop focuses primarily on the landing.
The goal is to step off a low box and absorb the landing with control. This can help develop your ability to manage forces through the ankles, knees and hips.
This has particular relevance to pickleball because the sport involves repeated stopping, landing and decelerating during unpredictable movements.
Focus on:
- A quiet, controlled landing
- Bending through the hips, knees and ankles
- Maintaining good alignment
- Avoiding excessive knee collapse
- Building the height and complexity gradually
Box Jumps
Box jumps place more emphasis on explosive force production.
They can be useful for developing lower-body power, which can transfer to quicker movements and stronger push-offs around the court.
The key is quality rather than quantity. Once jump height, technique or landing quality starts to deteriorate, the exercise has probably become more of a fatigue drill than a power drill.
3. Single-Leg Lateral Pogos
Pickleball is not played in a straight line.
Players constantly move sideways, push off one leg and react to shots that can send them in multiple directions. This is why lateral power should be a key consideration when training for the sport.
Single-leg lateral pogos are a simple but effective exercise for developing the ability to repeatedly produce and absorb force through one leg in a lateral direction.
Why they transfer to pickleball
They can help develop:
- Lateral push-off ability
- Ankle and calf stiffness
- Single-leg control
- Elastic strength
- Confidence with side-to-side movement
These are particularly useful qualities for players who want to become quicker when covering wide shots and moving around the kitchen line.
Start with low-volume, controlled repetitions and progress gradually. The goal is not simply to jump as far as possible, but to develop efficient and repeatable movement.
4. Pallof Twist
Pickleball requires a significant amount of rotation.
Your body needs to transfer force from the lower body, through the trunk and into the upper body during shots. This is why simply strengthening your arms without considering the trunk can leave an important gap in your training.
The Pallof twist combines core control with controlled rotation.
Why I like it for pickleball players
It helps train:
- Rotational strength
- Trunk control
- Force transfer through the body
- Control during asymmetrical movements
The aim isn’t just to create as much rotation as possible. Good rotational performance requires the ability to both produce and control rotation.
This can be particularly relevant for pickleball players who repeatedly rotate to hit forehands, backhands and powerful shots.
5. Fast Cable Pulldowns
Pickleball requires quick and coordinated upper-body movements. Fast cable pulldowns can be used to develop upper-body power and speed, particularly through movement patterns that involve pulling and accelerating the arms.
The focus should be on moving the cable quickly while maintaining control of the trunk and avoiding excessive compensatory movement.
Why it can be useful
Fast cable pulldowns can help develop:
- Upper-body power
- Rapid force production
- Shoulder and upper-back strength
- Coordination between the trunk and upper body
These qualities can complement the demands of repeatedly accelerating and controlling the paddle during play.
As with lower-body power exercises, the emphasis should be on speed and quality, rather than simply using the heaviest weight possible.
6. Single-Arm Chest Press and Shoulder Press
Pickleball is an asymmetrical sport.
Most players have a dominant hitting side, meaning one side of the upper body is repeatedly exposed to the demands of swinging, reaching and controlling the paddle.
Single-arm pressing exercises can be a useful addition because they challenge the upper body while also requiring the trunk to control asymmetrical loading.
Single-Arm Chest Press
This can help develop:
- Upper-body strength
- Single-arm force production
- Trunk stability
- Control of asymmetrical forces
Single-Arm Shoulder Press
This can help develop:
- Shoulder strength
- Overhead control
- Single-arm stability
- Coordination between the trunk and upper body
This does not mean every pickleball player needs to lift extremely heavy weights. The goal is to progressively develop enough strength and control to cope with the demands of the sport.
For players with shoulder or elbow pain, exercise selection and loading should be individualised.
A Case Study: Returning to Tennis and Pickleball After ACL Reconstruction
One example that reinforced the importance of off-court training was a client in their late 20s who was working towards returning to both tennis and pickleball following an ACL rupture.
Returning to a court sport requires much more than simply being able to jog, squat or perform a few exercises in the gym.
The athlete needed to regain the ability to confidently:
- Load each leg independently
- Land and absorb force
- Change direction at speed
- React to unpredictable situations
- Tolerate high-intensity court-based movements
The rehabilitation gradually progressed through single-leg loading, landing exercises, change-of-direction drills, reaction-based training and intense tennis-specific exercises.
Rather than stopping at basic strength exercises, the program eventually focused on recreating the physical and decision-making demands of returning to sport.
The outcome was a successful return to both tennis and pickleball, with the client reporting 100% confidence in their ability to return to their normal activities and sport.
For me, this case highlights an important point for all pickleball players:
Strength is the foundation—but if your sport requires you to jump, land, change direction and react, your training eventually needs to prepare you for those demands too.
How Often Should Pickleball Players Train?
The ideal program depends on factors such as your playing schedule, training history, age, injury history and goals.
However, for recreational and competitive players, I would generally recommend including regular gym-based strength and power training alongside pickleball.
A simple approach could include 2–3 gym sessions per week, depending on how often you’re playing and how well you tolerate your total training load.
Your program may include a combination of:
Strength
- Bulgarian split squats
- Single-arm chest press
- Single-arm shoulder press
- Other lower- and upper-body strength exercises
Power
- Box jumps
- Fast cable pulldowns
- Other appropriately progressed explosive exercises
Movement and plyometric training
- Box drops
- Single-leg lateral pogos
- Change-of-direction drills
Rotational training
- Pallof twists
- Other trunk and rotational exercises
The goal is to progress the program over time rather than performing the exact same exercises with the same weights forever.
Don’t Just Train on the Court
If you’re serious about improving your pickleball performance, playing more is not always the complete answer.
Time on the court will help develop your technical skills and tactical understanding. But targeted gym training can help build the physical qualities that support those skills.
You need to be able to:
- Push laterally
- Load and control one leg
- Accelerate and decelerate
- Generate and control rotation
- Produce force quickly
- React to unpredictable movements
- Tolerate the repeated demands of playing
The best exercises for you will depend on your individual strengths, weaknesses, injury history and goals. But if you want to improve your performance and give yourself the best chance of staying healthy, don’t limit your training to pickleball alone.
Build strength. Develop power. Train lateral movement. Improve your ability to react and change direction.
Because the better prepared your body is for the demands of the court, the more you can focus on what really matters: playing your best pickleball.
