Member Training Tips

Feb 25, 2025

How to Get Max Power on Pickleball Serve

Tip 1: How to Get Max Power

Contrary to popular belief, power on the serve does not come from the arm. It starts with the big muscles in your lower body, and gets transferred to the ball via your kinetic chain. In order to hit the ball as hard as possible, your whole body needs to work in unison.

  1. Start in a closed stance with an athletic knee bend. I.e. you should be perpendicular with the baseline. This allows you to explode into the shot, and maximize rotation. There are different stances that you can serve from, but the closed stance allows you to get the most power.
  2. Before you swing forward with your arm, quickly open up your hips this will create tension in your upper body that will pull it forward much faster.
  3. As you hit, rotate your entire body through the shot. When you make contact with the ball, your chest should be facing towards the net.
  4. Pivot into the court as you follow through over your shoulder. Allowing your dominant leg to carry through will give you easy access to relaxed power.
  5. Stay relaxed! The more relaxed you are, the faster you can swing.

Tip 2: Serve Away From Your Opponent for Easier Third Shots

One of the best ways to earn short returns, and keep your opponents back from the kitchen, is by serving away from your opponent.

How quickly you can get to the kitchen line depends on whether or not you have forward momentum as you hit. If you are moving forward as you hit, it is easiest to get to the kitchen.

So how do we keep our opponents from creating forward momentum? By serving away from them so that they can’t move forward into the return as they hit!

Try to get your opponent to take at least 1-2 steps to the left or the right before hitting their return. This way, they will have to move sideways to get behind the ball before they are able to step into it and hit. That makes it so much more likely that they are unable to get all the way up to the kitchen line, which means that you will have a much easier third shot opportunity.

Hint: Most players have a preferred side that they like to return from (forehand or backhand) and will cheat in that direction to increase their chances of getting their preferred shot. When you see this, don’t be afraid to hit to their better side. That additional room means that they will have to move farther to get to the ball.

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