About Whole-Body Pickleball
A Yogic Approach to Playing and Training for Sports
My major focus since 2019 has been how to apply principles and practices of yoga and yoga therapy to improve sports performance. Using yogic principles of movement facilitates power and touch on your shots. It’s easier on your body, helps you move more lightly, and I believe can lower the risk of injuries. And as I’ve been discovering first hand, it’s a lot more fun!
Five years ago, I started my investigations of the sports/yoga connection with tennis, but have expanded the work to include pickleball., which is now the primary sport I play and train for. I’ve modified a number of yoga poses and developed other training methods to serve athletes in these sports. This mindful, whole-body approach can be applied to many other sports and physical activities from golf to dancing.
Following ideas from yoga, we'll focus how to optimize posture, breath, movement and mental focus as well as swing mechanics to find easy, almost effortless power. We’ll work to tailor your training program to your unique situation and goals, based on the kind of comprehensive mind-body approach that yoga therapists routinely apply. With students who are open to it, we will use the full yoga toolbox in our training, including poses, breathing techniques, meditation and visualization.
We'll analyze the body holistically, optimizing how the different parts of the body work in a integrated fashion. Rather than obsess about muscles, we'll examine how the bones move through the body's connective tissue, the fascia. Certain alignments of bones help transmit power. Others help dampen forces, as when the feet hit the ground. One advantage of this whole-body method is that you can go deep into understanding and feeling the body without worrying about things like the names of muscles and where they attach.
One area that has fascinated me about pickleball and tennis is the crucial role played by the hands and the feet — rarely discussed in any detail in traditional racket sports instruction. Yogis, however, have explored this territory deeply. Another neglected focus is sports training is on the spine, an area that has fascinated yogis since ancient times. Movements of the spine with the swing turn out to be crucial in generating power, and are a major focus in Whole-Body Pickleball.
I have found that it's much easier for students to learn how to use the hands and feet and optimize their posture, if they're barefoot on a yoga mat, and they're not holding a paddle or a racket. Once you can get the movements down on a yoga mat, then you pick up the paddle. Once you can swing the paddle skillfully, then you start hitting balls against a wall or in a controlled way with an instructor or practice partner. Only then do you bring what you've learned to match play. This kind of gradual building up of skills, layering one on top of another, allows for much faster learning, and is central to this approach. For students willing to take on this steady work — even if it's only for a few minutes a day — this is a path aimed at mastery.
I teach both on the court at the Edge in Burlington, Vermont, and in my small yoga studio in Burlington's South End. Most of my coaching and lesson work is with individuals. In a small number of cases. I work with pairs of students who are practice partners and/or doubles partners.
My major focus since 2019 has been how to apply principles and practices of yoga and yoga therapy to improve sports performance. Using yogic principles of movement facilitates power and touch on your shots. It’s easier on your body, helps you move more lightly, and I believe can lower the risk of injuries. And as I’ve been discovering first hand, it’s a lot more fun!
Five years ago, I started my investigations of the sports/yoga connection with tennis, but have expanded the work to include pickleball., which is now the primary sport I play and train for. I’ve modified a number of yoga poses and developed other training methods to serve athletes in these sports. This mindful, whole-body approach can be applied to many other sports and physical activities from golf to dancing.
Following ideas from yoga, we'll focus how to optimize posture, breath, movement and mental focus as well as swing mechanics to find easy, almost effortless power. We’ll work to tailor your training program to your unique situation and goals, based on the kind of comprehensive mind-body approach that yoga therapists routinely apply. With students who are open to it, we will use the full yoga toolbox in our training, including poses, breathing techniques, meditation and visualization.
We'll analyze the body holistically, optimizing how the different parts of the body work in a integrated fashion. Rather than obsess about muscles, we'll examine how the bones move through the body's connective tissue, the fascia. Certain alignments of bones help transmit power. Others help dampen forces, as when the feet hit the ground. One advantage of this whole-body method is that you can go deep into understanding and feeling the body without worrying about things like the names of muscles and where they attach.
One area that has fascinated me about pickleball and tennis is the crucial role played by the hands and the feet — rarely discussed in any detail in traditional racket sports instruction. Yogis, however, have explored this territory deeply. Another neglected focus is sports training is on the spine, an area that has fascinated yogis since ancient times. Movements of the spine with the swing turn out to be crucial in generating power, and are a major focus in Whole-Body Pickleball.
I have found that it's much easier for students to learn how to use the hands and feet and optimize their posture, if they're barefoot on a yoga mat, and they're not holding a paddle or a racket. Once you can get the movements down on a yoga mat, then you pick up the paddle. Once you can swing the paddle skillfully, then you start hitting balls against a wall or in a controlled way with an instructor or practice partner. Only then do you bring what you've learned to match play. This kind of gradual building up of skills, layering one on top of another, allows for much faster learning, and is central to this approach. For students willing to take on this steady work — even if it's only for a few minutes a day — this is a path aimed at mastery.
I teach both on the court at the Edge in Burlington, Vermont, and in my small yoga studio in Burlington's South End. Most of my coaching and lesson work is with individuals. In a small number of cases. I work with pairs of students who are practice partners and/or doubles partners.
Timothy McCall, MD is the founder of Whole-Body Pickleball, offering coaching tailored to each individual’s unique situation and goals. He is the author of the Amazon #1 bestseller Yoga as Medicine. Since leaving his internal medicine practice 27 years ago, he has been a scholar, teacher and practitioner of yoga therapy. In 2021, Timothy won the Gold Medal in his age group in the Vermont State tennis championships. He has been coaching pickleball since 2023 and is on the teaching staff at the Edge, the largest pickleball club in Vermont.
To learn more about Timothy's work in yoga therapy, click here. To learn more about his path into tennis and pickleball, and the role yoga played in his evolution as a player, you might want to check out the revised and updated edition of his memoir Saving My Neck, published in July of 2024. It is available as an eBook on Kindle, Kobo and Apple Books.
To learn more about Timothy's work in yoga therapy, click here. To learn more about his path into tennis and pickleball, and the role yoga played in his evolution as a player, you might want to check out the revised and updated edition of his memoir Saving My Neck, published in July of 2024. It is available as an eBook on Kindle, Kobo and Apple Books.
This is me en route to winning the Gold Medal in the 2021 Vermont State tennis champtionships in the 65+ division.