The Pickleball Backswing Fix That Finally Stops Your Pop-Ups

A few weeks ago I was rallying with a player at one of our camps — I’ll call her Diane — and every third or fourth dink would float up off her paddle like a little gift to her opponent. She looked at me, half laughing and half frustrated, and said, “CJ, I know I’m hitting it too high. I just can’t stop doing it.” I hear this all the time, and I understand why it feels that way. This is a classic case of pickleball popups, but the height isn’t the real problem — and more often than not, the fix comes down to one thing: your pickleball backswing.

The short version: pop-ups aren’t caused by hitting the ball too high. They’re caused by too much energy — and the biggest source of that energy is a backswing that’s bigger than the shot actually needs. Shorten the backswing, and the pop-ups start to disappear.

Now let’s walk through why that’s true and exactly how to fix it.

The Pop-Up Isn’t About Height — It’s About Energy

When the ball floats up, almost everyone reaches the same conclusion: my paddle face was too open, I lifted too much, I hit it too high. It’s a reasonable guess. It’s also usually wrong.

The real culprit is energy — how much of it you put into the ball, and therefore how far the ball wants to travel. A pop-up is what happens when there’s too much energy behind a shot that only needed a little. That surplus carries the ball up and out instead of dropping it softly where you wanted it.

Here’s the simplest way to think about it: every shot has a job to do — a specific distance to cover. Give the ball more energy than the job requires, and that extra has to go somewhere. It goes up. That’s your pop-up.

Meet the Real Offender: Your Pickleball Backswing

There are a few sources that feed energy into a shot, but the biggest one — the number one cause of pop-ups I see on the court — is your pickleball backswing.

Let’s get on the same page about that word, because it trips people up. When most players hear “backswing,” they picture the paddle winding way back behind the body. That can be part of it, but here’s a cleaner definition to carry with you:

Your point of contact is wherever your paddle meets the ball. Your backswing is anything behind that point.

That’s it. A tiny dink has a tiny backswing. A drive from the baseline needs a bigger one, because the ball has to travel farther. The length changes with the shot — but anything behind contact is backswing, and every inch of it is loading energy into the ball.

And this isn’t only a dinking problem. It shows up in the transition zone, on resets, on nearly every soft shot you play. Wherever you’re asking the ball to travel a short distance, an oversized backswing will betray you.

Why I Teach This at the Kitchen Line

I always start players at the non-volley zone line for this, for two reasons:

• It’s the easiest place to see the problem. You’ve got seven feet on your side, seven on theirs, and a tiny window where the ball needs to land to stay unattackable. If it climbs high enough to be volleyed or bounces into your opponent’s wheelhouse, you’ve got too much energy — and it shows up right away.
• It’s the easiest place to fix it. Up close you don’t need much swing at all, so any excess is obvious and easy to trim.

Try this little demonstration — or just picture it. Hold a ball at the height of your paddle and let it drop. At the top of its bounce, that ball is sitting below the net; to get it over you’d have to lift it. Now add a bit of wrist, a bit of body — a little extra energy — and drop it again. Watch how much higher it climbs. Suddenly it’s up above the net, right where it can be attacked. Same ball, same starting height. The only thing that changed was the energy. That energy is what you’re learning to control.

The One Drill That Fixes It

Here’s the practice that changes everything, and it’s beautifully simple. Get up at the kitchen line with a partner, start a gentle dink rally, and ask yourself one question on every shot:

How short can I make my backswing and still get the ball over the net?

That’s the whole drill. Shrink your backswing shot after shot, exploring just how little you actually need. Take the paddle to your point of contact and push the ball over from there instead of swinging at it. Your backswing will get dramatically shorter — and here’s what surprises people — your follow-through can actually get a little longer. That forward motion gives you control and direction, while the shortened backswing strips out the excess energy that was launching your pop-ups.

How to Make It Stick

The drill shows you the what. Here’s how to turn it into lasting change on your own:

• Do a five-shot audit. Before your next session, hit five slow dinks and notice only what happens behind your contact point. Don’t fix anything yet — just notice. Awareness comes before change.
• Find your minimum. During the drill, deliberately go too short a few times and let the ball die in the net. That’s not failure — it’s information. Now you know the floor, and your ideal backswing lives just above it.
• Carry it into a game. This is where most players lose the thread — under pressure, the backswing quietly grows again. So pick one shot, say your cross-court dink, and make “short backswing” your only job for that shot all game.

The rule to tattoo on your brain: take as much backswing as the shot needs, and not one inch more. Every bit of excess is just energy waiting to pop your ball up. Shorten your pickleball backswing, and I promise those dreaded pop-ups will start disappearing.

If you’d like more drills and step-by-step help building this into your game, come see what we do over at Better Pickleball — this is exactly the kind of thing we work on together.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do I keep popping up the ball in pickleball?

Almost always because there’s too much energy on the shot for the distance it needs to travel — and the biggest source of that energy is a backswing that’s bigger than the shot requires. Shorten the backswing and most pop-ups take care of themselves.

Isn’t a pop-up caused by hitting the ball too high?

That’s what it feels like, but the height is the symptom, not the cause. The real issue is depth and energy — how far the ball wants to travel. Fix the energy and the height corrects itself.

What exactly counts as my backswing?

Your point of contact is wherever your paddle meets the ball, and your backswing is anything behind that point. It doesn’t have to mean winding the paddle way back behind your body — even a small motion behind contact is backswing.

Does this only apply to dinks?

No. The kitchen line is just the easiest place to see it and fix it. The same principle applies to transition-zone shots, resets, and really any shot where you want the ball to travel a short distance.

What’s the ideal backswing length?

It varies by shot, so there’s no single number. The best way to find yours is the drill: at the kitchen line, discover how short you can make your backswing and still get the ball over the net. That shortest reliable length is your ideal for that shot.

If you want to feel this click in real time — with me right beside you at the kitchen line — come join us at a Better Pickleball Camp. Over two days we turn the shots you know into shots you trust, so your game holds up when the pressure’s on. Come train with us — I’d love to see you out there.