• Fitness & Health
• Sport & Exercise Science
• Physical Education
• Strength & Conditioning
• Sports Medicine
• Sport Management
• Dance

Coneheads

This is an excerpt from The Pickleball Drill Book by Suzee Anderson.

CONEHEADS

TYPE OF SHOT

Dink

PROGRESSION LEVEL

2

EQUIPMENT

Agility cones; ball machine optional

NUMBER OF PLAYERS

2 players

OBJECTIVE

This drill was designed to improve dinking accuracy, precision targeting, and court positioning. By aiming at specific cone targets while defending their own, players learn to control their shot placement and take dinks out of the air to maintain an offensive NVZ position. The drill promotes both offensive pressure and defensive awareness in a controlled setting.

SETUP

• Set up 2 cones per player, positioned 1 foot (0.3 m) inside the NVZ and about 1 foot (0.3 m) to either side of the player’s stance.
• Place a ball on top of each cone to serve as a visual and physical target.
• Players set up straight on at the NVZ, using skinny (half) court width (a). This drill can also be performed crosscourt either direction (b).

  

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Players engage in a straight-on dink rally, with the goal of knocking the balls off their opponent’s cones.
2. At the same time, players must protect their own cones by taking dinks out of the air whenever possible to prevent bounce and target exposure.

FOCUS POINTS

• Be mindful not to overreach when taking a ball out of the air. A good indicator is if you feel your hips or your tush pushing back behind you, which signals you’re reaching too far forward. In most cases, if you need to extend that much, it’s better to let the ball bounce and then hit it.
• Take balls off the bounce that are bouncing in front of the cones, and if the ball is bouncing at the cones or behind, take it out of the air.

VARIATION

Make this drill easier by having cones in front of just 1 person. They will be defending the cones while their partner will be targeting the cones. Make sure to rotate so that both partners get a chance to defend or target.

More Excerpts From The Pickleball Drill Book

---