Drilling in Pickleball is super important if you want to up-level your game. Playing recreational games is really fun, but in order to get better you have to drill.
Christian Alshon is a big believer in wall drills and still uses a wall to this day. The wall has no emotions and will give you signals on what you are doing right and wrong.
It also doesn’t require significant investment like a Pickleball machine because you don’t have to invest in the machine. Pick up tubes. Or buy 100 balls.
You just need 1 ball.
In this post I will cover the 6 best wall drills to take your game to the next level. Lets go!!
Dinking Against The Wall
The first drill you should do is similar to when you start drilling with a partner—simple dinking. Stand about 3-5 feet from the wall.
To simulate real dinking, measure the wall to match the typical pickleball net height of 35 inches. You want to practice hitting just above that height for proper clearance.
Start by aiming for the same spot repeatedly to build muscle memory with your forehand. This is a great opportunity to experiment with different types of dinks, like adding an aggressive roll or slicing the ball.
Once you’re comfortable, switch to backhand dinking. Start with one hand and focus on slicing since it’s the easiest shot. Prioritize control over power—good dinking is all about precision and placement.
If you’re a 3.5+ player, start thinking about how to be more aggressive with your backhand dink. That means using two hands to execute a two-handed backhand roll. If you watch the PPA, you’ll never see Anna-Leigh Waters hit a one-handed backhand slice.
To execute a two-handed backhand dink roll, place your non-dominant hand on top of your dominant hand. The power and wrist movement should come from your non-dominant hand, while your dominant hand guides the ball.
To train this on the wall, hold your paddle with only your non-dominant hand and dink repeatedly.
Doing this drill consistently will significantly speed up your ability to develop a two-handed backhand roll dink.
Volley Control Drill
One of the first things tested in every pickleball game is how fast your hands are. Volleying against a wall is a perfect drill to improve hand-eye coordination and reflexes.
The Drill:
- Stand about 5 feet from the wall.
- Volley the ball without letting it bounce.
- Start with forehand volleys, then switch to backhand, and finally alternate.
- Keep a short, controlled stroke and focus on consistency.
The key here is to start slow and control the pace of the ball. There’s no benefit to hitting fast if you can only manage one or two volleys before the ball drops.
Whether you’re working on forehand-only, backhand-only, or alternating volleys, it’s crucial to return to the ready position after each shot.
Ready position means keeping your arm extended in front of you with a slight bend in your elbow and knees.
This is important because if you speed up the ball on your forehand but it comes back to your backhand, you won’t be ready—and you’ll lose the point.
Groundstroke Consistency Drill
The next drill I want you to work on is your groundstroke.
This is a really table stakes skill in pickleball as returning the ball and 3rd shot drives/drops are typically groundstrokes.
For this drill, I want you to stand 7-10 feet away from the wall and hit forehands and backhands – let the ball bounce once before returning it.
To improve your accuracy, I want you to hit the same spot on the wall each time.
Again, make sure that you are bending your knees and avoid reaching. Make sure you are moving your feet and meet with the ball at the ready position.
Keep your wrist firm and follow through with your non-dominant hand and body to return back to ready position.
Third Shot Drop Practice
The 3rd shot drop is the most common shot in pickleball. It’s where most points are won or lost, especially in 3.0-4.0 level games.
I want you to stand 10-12 feet away from the wall and start hitting balls so that it arcs up and lands right on top of where you marked the top of the net.
When beginning this drill, I want you to give more space for clearance to hit the ball a couple inches higher, because a high 3rd shot drop is better than a 3rd shot drop that hits the net.
Remember, there are 2 ways to hit a drop, backhand or forehand. Make sure that you are practicing both motions.
If you are an advanced player, I want you to try drilling your topspin 2 hack backhand drop. This may be hard at first, but you can think of drop shots as extended 2 handed backhand dinks.
Speed ups/Resets
The next drill I want you to work on combines having fast hands and a soft game. To execute this drill, stand about 4 feet from the wall.
I want you to hit a fast volley, followed by a soft volley reset. Then keep alternating.
The reason you want to drill this is because this is a real world scenario in a pickleball game.
You may be the team that initiates the firefight, but have to reset the next ball because your opponent counters really well. All you can do at that point is concede and hit a soft game back.
OR else they will just crush the next ball. Keep doing this drill for 5 minutes.
Speed ups/Counters
The next drill here is identical to the last one except instead of resetting the second ball, I want you to counter the second ball.
Now I want you to notice the patterns that generally happen here and where the ball is coming back for the counter. You will notice here that if you hit your first ball really hard, then expect a really fast ball to come back at you.
This really prepares you for hand battles in pickleball games because it will teach you that the game isn’t over when you speed up the ball for the first time. Hands battles last at least a couple shots throughout a standard rally.
Beating the Wall
The final drill of the pickleball wall drills is ‘beating the wall.’ You want to get in the volley position and hit the ball as hard as you can while still having control.
This will put a final test to your hands speed. You will often find and adjust to scenarios where you have to switch from backhack to forehand, forehand to forehand and so forth.
A tip here is to make sure your swings are compact so that you can completely control the ball.
Do this drill until you get sick of doing wall drills and call it a day.
Conclusion
Woo! I hope you had fun with this pickleball wall drilling session. Wall Drilling sessions are a great way to improve your game even if you don’t have a partner and you don’t have the money to invest in a pickleball machine.
By incorporating these exercises into your routine, you’ll see noticeable improvements to your reaction time and accuracy.
Your pickleball friends will ask you, “Have you been drilling?”
And you will say, “Yep, against the wall.”