Last week when we were together we started to answer the question too lob or not
to lob and we focused primarily on the defensive lob or one that was hit from
the baseline. This week we'll be focusing on the offensive lob,
what it is, why it works,
when to use it and most importantly how to hit it. Stay tuned.
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Using a scale of one to five one meaning I never use it,
five meaning it's a consistent part of my game.
How often do you use an offensive lob? One that's hit from the Non-Volley Zone.
Put your number down in the comment section below.
As we talked about in last week's video,
a lob is designed to move the players away from the non-volley zone.
An offensive lob is when all four players are at the non-volley zone,
usually engaged in a dinking game and one of the teams uses a lob as a tactic to
move the other team back to a defensive position.
This can be a very effective strategy,
especially if your opponents are not very mobile.
Maybe they don't play together often so they don't communicate very well with
each other. One's a little shorter than the other.
Perhaps they have lousy overheads or maybe you've got the sun in their eyes or
the wind in your favor. Now that you know the what, the why and the when,
let's show you how to hit the shot.
The Setup for the shot is much like the dink shot.
It's a open paddle face so the ball goes up and over your opponent's head.
It's a low to high motion with the paddle and it's a feeling like I'm pushing
the ball up off the paddle,
my wrist remains stable and I feel like I'm using my legs and the upward motion
of the paddle to push the ball over my head.
[inaudible]
Contact needs to happen out in front of your body.
The further back you get the paddle in your stance,
the harder it becomes to control the paddle face and therefore the trajectory of the ball.
The key here is to make it look like you're going to dink the ball and then hit a lob
I don't remember who showed me this drill but this is my favorite way to teach the lob
because it gives you a lot of visual so that you can see the trajectory
and exactly what you're trying to do with the ball.
Place two cones or markers about three feet inside the court as a landing area.
Then have one player stand at the non-volley zone and hold their paddle up in the air
and using the other hand,
toss the ball over the net like it was a good dink with the ball bouncing below
the net height. You'll notice the bounce is a simple dink.
It's not pushing you back or moving you around too much.
It's way easier to hit the lob off that type of a dink versus a dink where you
have to move to hit it.
If you missed the first video in this series on when to lob or not to lob,
and we talked a lot about the defensive lob, click right over here.
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share it with your pickleball playing friends because together we can Train
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