Why Pickleball Gets You in Your Best Energy
Note: This article‘s former title and subtitle was: “I’ve discovered the secret to thriving in the pandemic: Pickleball. Here’s why pickleball gets you in your best energy.”
Yes, you heard me right. Pickleball is the secret to not only surviving (as many of us have been trying to), but thriving in pandemic life.
In fact, I have the pandemic to thank for bringing this silver lining into my life. If not for the pandemic, I would not have been forced to get creative about how to meet new people in person in this new normal and have fun while doing it. There are only so many Zoom meetings and virtual parties that a human can take.
With pickleball, I am in very high energy every time: physical, emotional, mental, and even spiritual energy from the sense of connection and a community larger than yourself.
We can’t control the unpredictability of life, but we can control how we manage and cultivate our best energy!
But first, what the heck is pickleball? Pickleball is a racquet sport that’s like a mashup of baby tennis and giant ping pong. My favorite is playing doubles (2 people vs. 2 people), though there are singles games and variations like “King of the Court” where a different player rotates in every point (convenient if you have an odd number of people).
By the way, I do recognize that pickleball is not the only secret to thriving in the pandemic. Playing any social outdoors sport is a great way to get in your best energy. This can mean team sports like tennis, soccer, basketball, or ultimate frisbee, or individual sports that you can do with other people like swimming, running, or skiing, for example.
Pickleball, however, is a game-changer that differs in ways that make it much more conducive to thriving in the pandemic.
Traits of pickleball that lend to being in your best energy:
1. Social and socially distanced
A pickleball court is smaller than a tennis court, so you are close enough to chit chat or talk smack, but it’s not close-contact like football or soccer. Yay for social distancing!
Pickleball lends to meeting many new people in a short amount of time. The other night, I played with 12 different people in various doubles games. It’s not easy to find a sport where you can easily play with a wide variety of new people on a regular basis.
Drop-in or open play pickup games are a norm, and thus pickleball culture is very open to playing with random people. This also makes it less intimidating to invite yourself. The variety and connection inherent in this design is great for boosting emotional energy!
2. Fun outdoors exercise
Exercise and sports are of course a key driver to optimizing physical energy. On top of that, being outdoors and getting fresh air is not just safer Covid-wise, but also an easy way to boost all the energies (physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual).
My favorite sports pre-pandemic were either indoors (yoga or hip hop dance classes) or outdoors individual sports (hiking, swimming, skiing). I realized that the key differentiator was to find an outdoor team sport to really thrive in the pandemic, especially to fuel strong emotional energy.
Note: We are lucky to be able to play outdoors year-round in California, but winter didn’t stop these dedicated Canadians from shoveling snow to play pickleball in Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada! How’s that for inspo!
3. Easy to learn and short time investment
Pickleball is easier than tennis or badminton, and more of a workout than ping pong. The learning curve is much less steep! Start learning by playing your first game. If you’ve played racquet sports or any sport with hand-eye coordination, your ramp-up will be even faster. Serving is so much easier than in tennis— much lower barrier to entering this sport.
You don’t have to invest a lot of energy to get in or out. Games are pretty fast, lasting about 15–20 minutes each. Since drop-in games are common in pickleball culture, you don’t have to commit to a league or a season of games. You don’t need to gather a ton of people like the minimum critical mass needed for team sports like soccer, baseball, or ultimate frisbee.
4. Good for self-esteem
This is huge for strong emotional energy! Self-confidence and fulfillment from overcoming challenges is key to boosting emotional energy.
Because pickleball is easy to learn and games are short, it’s easy to get quick wins and you’re often celebrating wins! Anyone can easily score a point, not just advanced people who smash shots, especially if other players are not consistent (which I have found often to be the case). The ball also can bounce unpredictably, so sometimes you score even if you didn’t think you would.
And if you don’t win, not a big deal — everyone is pretty laidback and supportive, and you’ll be playing a new game in 15 minutes anyway.
5. Great for all ages
One unexpected learning is that pickleball works well for all ages, from kids to seniors. Parents play with their kids. I’ve personally played with people who range in age from the 20s to 80s!
One of my pickleball teammates, Babs, plays 3–4 times a week and I thought she was in her 50s or 60s. I was gobsmacked to find out that she’s 80 years old! There’s a whole contingent actively playing in their 80s (example here) and 90s (example here).
When I was younger, I enjoyed running and ultimate frisbee, but those are more taxing on the body. In my 30s and 40s, I transitioned to more age-amenable sports like yoga and hiking, but again, I realized that team sports are the key differentiator to put yourself in high emotional energy!
Fun stat: According to the USA Pickleball Association, 60% of core active players are over 55 years old.
6. All levels and genders play together
Pickleball is surprisingly great for people of all levels to play together and still have fun and get a workout. You can ramp up your intensity for a more competitive game with more advanced people, or play a more casual game with lesser experienced people. Both are enjoyable!
The mix-and-matching makes it conducive for all genders to play together. Personally, I find that mixed-gender play and diversity in teammates is the most fun! You get a better mix of competitiveness and collaboration, and a wider variety of styles to learn from. This enhances both emotional energy and mental energy.
7. Mental strategy
Another factor that surprised me is the mental strategy. Perfect way to keep the mind sharp into old age!
I learned in my first singles game that if I didn’t want to be expending all this extra energy running all over the court like a maniac, I needed to return the ball so that it would be hard for my opponent to get. This involves strategy on both style (e.g. volley, lob, dink, overhead smash) and placement of the return.
As a beginner or when rallying for fun, your main goal is simply to get the ball over the net. Beyond that, you will want to incorporate what I call “lazy path optimization” a.k.a. strategically hit the ball so you don’t have to run as much. Then you’re also smartly allocating energy to win more and have endurance to play more games!
8. Easily accessible
Best of all, pickleball is accessible to the general public and low cost. There are many public and private pickleball courts and communities, such as in San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Houston, New York City, Chicago, New Jersey, for example.
PlayTime Scheduler is a handy website for finding nearby available pickleball players and courts by date and time, across every continent besides Antarctica. If you’re pandemic road-tripping like my friend Grant, you could be pickleballing across America!
Unlike skiing or golf, you don’t need to spend much on equipment. You can start with two paddles and two balls for $19.99 on Amazon. Some recreation centers or courts let you borrow equipment, so then you don’t even have to buy anything. Make sure to wear tennis/court shoes with lateral foot support (e.g. no running shoes!) and just show up as yourself!
The reason why I was inspired to write this article is because it has been challenging for many to stay in their best energy in this pandemic, and the hardest is managing emotional energy.
On the bright side, I have found that emotional energy can also be your biggest lever to feeling like you’re living your best life. I view it as foundational to the other energies (physical, mental, spiritual energy). They’re all intertwined, but cultivating strong emotional energy can greatly amplify the other energies so that you are truly living your best self everyday.
Again, this is all within our control!
As Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz wrote in The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal: “In order to perform at our best, we must access pleasant and positive emotions: the experience of enjoyment, challenge, adventure and opportunity.”
That’s pickleball! For all the accessible reasons I outlined above.
So are you convinced yet?? Pickleball is my new favorite sport into old age. Yep, that’s going to be me, the Emma Raducanu of the 80-year-old group in pickleball one day.
Pickleball truly is a hidden gem, and I hope that by sharing these insights, more people are able to feel like they’re thriving in their best life every day!
Big thank you to my friends Grant Kellerman, Kailash Suresh, and Daria Siganova for teaching me pickleball!
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