Pickleball Beats Tennis | Pickleball at Work

Pickleball outpaces tennis, an office that plays during work, and a 13-year-old phenom!

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The Pickleball Clinic
October 25, 2023

Welcome back to The Pickleball Clinic Newsletter!

Pickleball outpaces tennis, an office that plays during work, and a 13-year-old phenom!

Let’s dive in 👇

Apple conducted a study about pickleball and tennis, and the results are AMAZING!

  • 👍Pickleball had MORE Apple workouts than tennis!

  • ⌚Data was collected from 250,000 Apple Watch workouts

  • 💪Pickleball workouts slightly longer than tennis (91 vs 80 minutes)

  • 💓Tennis workouts slightly more rigorous (152 vs 143 beats per minute)

  • 🥒Most popular pickleball state per capita is... UTAH!

Wait, did you see the first bullet point???!!!!

Pickleball outpaced tennis for the first time — not just in growth, but in actual number of players! That’s BIG NEWS!

Granted, it’s just among Apple Watch users in this study, and it’s not really news to many of us who clearly see which courts are more crowded in our local parks.

BUT to have actual data supporting this is a pretty big deal! 👇

The study also touted the physical and mental health benefits of both sports — and hey, we definitely appreciate that Apple, but by 2023, we kind of all know that exercise is good for you.

Pickleball is super fun, easy to learn, very healthy, super social, and you can play your entire life — it’s almost impossible not to respect it as one of the greatest things to ever exist. No wonder it’s blowing up…

In today’s Guest Bulletin, pro player Megan Fudge discusses why kids love pickleball and why it’s so important that they play.

“We’ve heard it a million times — ‘pickleball popularly is growing like crazy!’ But so is the age range of players. The excitement about this sport has caught on to all age groups. Having gone over to the English Open and watched the junior division duel it out, the excitement was contagious.

It’s a sport for all ages and all ability levels. The reasons why adults love pickleball also apply for children: light paddles, low bouncing balls, small courts, simple scoring system — and social.

The big debate now is whether kids should play along with the adults or have their own pathway. We’ve had the opportunity to see our children, Lily (8) and JR (7) compete both in junior events and in the 3.0 adult divisions and they are just as excited to play in either. For them, playing against any age means a chance to play. While our kids are also homeschooled and very familiar with interacting with all age groups, I also believe that this embraces the pickleball culture — inclusive to all walks of life, experience levels and ages.

I hope that everyone will be as open to all age groups embracing this sport that we all love and get the youth off the screens and onto the courts where life lessons can be taught.”

Reset hard drives into the kitchen…

Against bangers with big drives, it’s usually a good idea to just drop the ball in the kitchen so they don’t have an opportunity to attack. How do you do that? Here are 3 tips:

1. Don’t swing. Just hold your paddle out in front of your body and let the ball bounce off it. If you apply additional pace, it will go farther and you will risk a pop up.

2. Relax your arm. If your arm is tight, the ball will pop off of your paddle. You want to absorb the pace of the ball to soften the shot — which is hard to do with a tight arm.

3. Get into a wide, low, athletic stance. Your feet should be shoulder width apart with at least a 1/4 knee bend. This way you will be able to stand your ground rather than let the shot push you back and control your paddle.

Word on the Street: ProXR Pickleball is Adding to its Lineup!

ProXR Pickleball offers blue, purple and even orange options. But what if they added more? We got an exclusive first look at a new ProXR line, and you're going to get excited about these paddles. Including the same features that we love about ProXR — a carbon face, the extra comfortable handle — all with an alluring new color scheme.

Can you say “hands battle”?

Pickleball at the Office

Want your employees to be happy?

Then build them a pickleball court — that’s what one company did!

Room & Board, a furniture retailer in Minneapolis, put a pickleball court in its building and encourages its employees to play often…

  • It estimates that 50 of its 350 employees play at least once a week

  • Employees can play before, during, or after work

  • Matches are scheduled using same software to book meetings

“We don’t want people coming into the office and sitting on video calls all day…otherwise, what’s the point?” said Nancy Manley, Room & Board’s Chief People Officer. “Work should be fun.”

Hi Nancy: one comment and one question…

Comment: We agree, work should be fun.

Question: Are you hiring?!!!!!

You had us worried there for a second. 😂

Way to Glow, Franklin!

Turn your next match into a late night party with Franklin X-40 Glow in the Dark pickleballs! This brand new ball will add a little extra illumination while playing under the lights. Charge your Glow in the Dark X-40s in the sunlight for about 15 minutes and you’ll be all set to hit the courts at night! Get your glow on at Franklin Pickleball with our exclusive 15% discount, use code clinic15.

Are you a 4.5 player? Impressive. Next question, are you 13 years old? AJ Marrero can answer “yes” to both questions.

Aaron talks to him in this YouTube video👇

Steve Kuhn (retired hedge fund manager, serial pickleball entrepreneur, and co-founder of Major League Pickleball) resigned last week from his position at MLP.

However, Kuhn will remain heavily involved in the sport, as he still runs multiple pickleball businesses and is an active investor in others as well.

Thanks for the read! See you soon.

- Your Friends at The Pickleball Clinic

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