Ben Johns, World #1, PRO TIPS to Mastering the Fourth Shot in Pickleball!

for me it's personally right about here is as far as I can get to a ball so if I'm stretching for it right about here I mean I could go a little further this way and there I could go a little further this way but my optimal is right about here to be honest I didn't realize how much depth there was to it until we started doing it and I was like we're not even halfway through you know most of the time I just focus on hitting it really really hard I was a natural before

am I no longer a natural you weren't a natural at this one uh I struggle with it you you started strong and then some of the training wheels fell off all right hey everybody um Josh here again got Ben one more time here in Antigo very fortunate this time he's going to help me with my fourth shots um you see him patrolling the kitchen um keeping opponents back really winning a lot of points before their opponents even get to the kitchen and I kind of want to adopt some of that so I'm going to hit

some Force he's going to tell me what I'm doing right wrong his mentality then we're going to fix it that sounds about right I'd say the fource shots one of the easiest things you can improve that makes uh matches and points a lot easier for yourself you get a lot of free points I'm glad you said easiest to improve I thought you were going to say easiest and I was like that's not that easy for me all right um well you hit some drops um and then I'll show you what I got okay we got

a back end roll it's a strong start so a couple things first off I would say your back in roll huh that didn't take long no it usually doesn't Okay uh when you're hitting a back end roll I wouldn't really drop the paddle head uh dropping the paddle head is just it's kind of a hard thing to to time and it's more used as a flick motion for generating power from above the level of the net if you're doing it from below the level of the net I try to keep the paddle horizontal and then

go up from there kind of a classic backhand roll uh form yeah uh you'll get more tops spin that way and you're going to miss less then forand uh could be a little bit because of your grip but you tend to contact it more to the side of your body than you do out in front so making the area smaller that we're hitting in here is really important so uh try to make contact with a fully extended arm but out in front of you maximum extension forward not outward so um because I'm more Continental than

Eastern yeah so if you're the more Continental you are the harder it's going to be to actually cont contact it out in front so if you kind of take a severe Cony grip just as a as an example and then stretch out you can see that it gets harder and harder to actually Turn It Forward enough so the more Continental you are the more to the side you tend to be uh on contact point that being said you can still even with a severe Continental grip like I have right now you could tilt It Forward

enough to get to something like this which is definitely acceptable okay and I mean you're not even that severe Continental I mean do I need to be moving more um on some of those you were kind of fine as in terms of movement it's really just a conscious decision of trying to make contact more out in front than to the side there will be times where you do actually need to move cuz what you really don't want is when I drop straight to the center of your body you're never going to going to get a

good uh attacking ball from there it needs to be the side in one way or the other if I have the choice between it if uh somebody's dropping straight to me then I'm going to choose forehand generally so I'll slide to my left and try to get it to the side basically you got to find your sweet spot zone of for my maximum extension where I can hit good shots it's about here so I'm going to try to get that contact point if the ball's here I'm shifting this far they need see maximum Conta point

it's probably just almost just off your right foot um it I think it varies for people depending on kind of the wrist uh range motion and uh what they're comfortable doing but uh for me it's personally right about here is as far as I can get to a ball so if I'm stretching for it right about here I mean I could go a little further this way and there's I could go a little further this way but my optimal is right about here therefore if the ball is here I'm going to be sliding and trying

to get that same contact Point okay all right that makes sense um and really I'd say fourth ball it's super important to keep the wrist flexed forward uh when you're getting to full extension cuz when people get to extension they tend to open the wrist and it goes up instead of with Top Spin yeah and then uh when you have one that's really upwards um when you're swinging people tend to kind of flick the wrist upwards to kind of compensate for that really you don't really want to do that it's more like you can finish

above your right shoulder instead of your left shoulder if you if you need to hit more severe just change the swing path not the wrist now nice that'll also get you more spin then uh we we've kind of been over most of the the roll positions kind of you know don't break your wrist swing upwards and all that but then if you do if you are getting a ball where it's near the level of net where you're trying to generate power at that point uh you're more looking to rotate a lot with your hips and

your shoulders that's going to generate all your power but uh you still want to stay low enough to where when you're contacting the ball near the level of the net your eyes are near that level as well okay when you're when you're doing this are you finishing with your weight on the right side or you getting across your body um I would say there's a transfer if I'm hitting like a forehand a little bit from the right foot most weight to left foot as I'm swinging because it's so rotational and I'm finishing over a little

transfer because of this yes because of the rotation nice I came so up high on that though yeah uh it's better to stay down and then if you need to uh like on that last one and this is kind of a an interesting thing that is not as natural um if I'm getting say you know maybe I hit a good fourth initially but then I get a slightly Higher One to where it's kind of like here yeah people will uh struggle to kind of know what to do with that because it's almost high to where

you want to do this but it's not quite there like so what do I do with that that one where I can't quite hit an overhead but it is high most people will just kind of go straight through it but they're like I need to keep the ball in so I can't hit it super hard the reality is if you kind of close the paddle face and you still swing up on it but instead of finishing here you do this what I call the Chariot whip you can get a ton of pace and a ton

of spin it's never going to go out do that a lot right this yeah Tyson's kind of the specialist that's where I got it from initially it's one of his best shots um so yeah you're looking to use the Chariot whip okay I got nine things in my head right now thanks Chariot whip oh no that one you're still coming across I know I know and I stand straight up that's nicer that's much better Top Spin you also get it off the court uh as a righty you get to get some side spin on it

and it goes off to the right side very nicely all right I don't hate it I would say another thing uh again still in the Vol is this one on the backhand is that uh people it's again not intuitive at all when you have a high backhand so it's like fast enough to where you can't get uh this ball to as a forehand you're going to you're guaranteed to be hitting a back hand but it's like shoulder height or above people will do this they're like how do I generate power like this the reality is

our wrists just don't do this very well uh so it's again rotational so it might feel feel weird but you're actually here horizontal then turn the paddle phase down so you don't actually hit it out and then you just rotate and snap basically from all from this is this a shot your brother has an interesting name for um I don't remember what he calls this one we'll talk off camera it's one of my favorites though uh because it just feels so good to hit like it's a surprising amount of power you can generate with a

backand um but when you're hitting this you're not going down the line you're going across or you you could go either way you really just change that based on your contact point if you contact a little further back it's going to be more down the line if you contact it out in front more it'll be um cross what people really do wrong with this one is they don't trust the ball's going to go in so they don't swing fully hard but if you turn your wrist down enough it'll always go in all right yeah so

those right there like you see how short in the court it's Landing yeah that means you've turn the wrist down enough now you have free license because you see where it's Landing to like really unload like just in the kitchen yeah like they're they're they're you're containg from so high and you're turning the wrist down so much that you just have full license to completely wrap like these are usually having you have enough time to just turn to your maximum rotationally and then snap back like loading a spring there's no rotation there that's just shoulder

that was just this yeah that's shoulder I too many things things to think about no that actually looked more correct but you see you still missed in the net which is interesting right most people think they're going to miss long that one the problem with that is that your wrist kind of came across like it's not a roll over with your wrist you really want to keep your wrist back and it'll snap at the end but never over that actually looks really good keep it horizontal no matter how high it is yeah there you go

you actually got some some juice on that one all right so you literally have like 12 options when you're hitting fourth you have a ton of options yeah uh eventually they start to happen naturally based on the ball position because they each come from different positions and these are only kind of the volley force uh as soon as the ball bounces your options kind of change completely uh but there's a lot of options there as well all right hit you hit some show me what I'm really supposed to be doing yep so immediately on those

really you're just trying to get maximum Top Spin to make it jump a lot that one's high enough where I can actually rotate a little bit that's kind of the in between one again that's power and Top Spin um and then the one where it's a little higher in the backand is where you fully wrap and unload all right give me like three rolls then yeah that was good all right then show me show me your like the one you rip rip apart yeah so you I mean like you got to go back as far

as your back was pointing at me yeah okay yeah and then you can change the the the placement pretty easily so I mean if I'm trying to hit across I'm just going to contact it like out here and if I'm trying to go line I'm going to contact it like here well you probably go to this person unless that person's up a little bit closer um so they have less reaction or no you know most of the time I just focus on hitting it really really hard all right two more of those guys yeah de

all right then show me the uh show me the forehand just at least the movement of how you get there yep money that was Chariot yeah so the the first couple were severely up enough to where I still needed to finish over this shoulder yeah then the high one was where I wanted to apply enough power to where I had to do the Chariot whip in order to still keep it in with that amount of power okay [Music] so like if you hit those first ones and I come I'm coming in I me I know

you're coming from low to high you feel you feel pretty good if someone's coming in on it or do you like to try make that bounce you against the better players you have to have some peripheral idea of how fast they're closing because if I hit that shot on somebody that is hitting their drop and immediately trying to Sprint to the line because they feel like they hit it well it's probably not a great shot they're going to be contacting it around midcourt near like shoulder height probably if they're hesitant about coming in that makes

it pretty easy for me I just have free license to just do whatever I want uh with the ones that are coming in fast you have to be a little more careful and typically I'd take that shot I'd still hit it that direction I'd take some juice off to where it kind of Dives more at their feet uh then they're you know they got to hit a half volley midcourt block uh while trying to move forward which is not impossible but not the easiest thing all right I'm going to try to come in on a

decent one yeah I don't like that no thanks one more yeah so I mean if you're contacting it out here especially rather than like back here like if you're watching the ball I don't have an idea of where you are when I'm contacting near here that's another Advantage if I'm cont contacting all the way out here I can clearly see with my left side kind of generally where you're at in the court and that tells me what I should be doing with the ball and so you're looking for out of the air if you can't

then back up we haven't really gone over that but there's a ton of adjustments you make as soon as you realize that you either can't get it out of the air uh or that when it bounces it's end up it's going to end up bouncing higher than I would have caught it out of the air those are like my two reasons the first one is typically a little more defensive like if it's something I literally can't reach they often have enough time to close pretty far so I'll kind of get it as far as I

can at the peak have a peripheral idea of where they are and then pick a spot um and then if it is actually going to bounce high than I would have contacted it in the air that's one where I'm usually looking to be a little more aggressive and then the form for those of course changes quite a bit it doesn't look like the volley very much obviously all right I'm going to give you one where you come in and then that'll be a teaser for people to think about forever in the future so hit this

one off the bounce somewhere that one I would never take off the bounce because it's too far I don't know if I can hit a drop good enough to make you God I that one was like a more linear drop I'd probably tend to be looking to get it at your feet there rather than like a sweep attack if you hit a little higher yeah but also shorter yeah out of the air we may be here for a minute yeah so something like that I'm kind of taking it off the peak and I have a

couple options there I mean kind of where I hit it I could try to jam you to your right hip which would be the harder shot and then depending on what this partner is doing uh you'd have quite a few options uh and at that point I'm trying to usually kind of hit it like this outside of the ball and and kind of crunch this shoulder her up to where I can get on top of the ball um but there are certainly some other options where I could kind of put the wrist up and roll

a little more or I could even go around inside and kind of go in that area as well uh and that's depending on what you guys are doing so I think the takeaway is like you're looking to be aggressive you're looking to get to your favorite shot your forehand to get it to balce or put them on pressure pressure MH yeah I would say with the fourth shot um you have a ton of options like probably I mean yeah out of the air alone probably at least six options uh and then off the bounce as

many or even more so it's certainly a shot that's tough due to the decision- making but I don't think any given one is super hard to hit mechanically as a shot all right anything else I need to know um I was a natural before am I no longer a natural you weren't a natural at this one uh I struggle with it you you started strong and then some of the training wheels fell off there were training wheels on I think so I think so we started dropping the paddle head and I was like oh no

contact Point's tough and now we haven't even gotten into the bouns attack to be honest I didn't realize how much depth there was to it until we started doing it and I was like we're not even halfway through uh he's confused so I don't know about confused but lost days and Confused cut edit that out um all right yeah so if I just focus on being a little bit more solid better contact points and movement no wrist involvement my Force probably get better absolutely they do I would say your focuses are um try to be

aggressive be aware of what your opponent is doing what both opponents are doing as in picking spots uh find a good contact point and move laterally like very like that's very important move laterally well right this is this this is my thing like I can win points I can get to the kitchen I my drop stinks all pretty good I just I let people hear too easily like I don't punish or take advantage of yeah I think is one of the most underrated things I mean if they can't score against you you have all the

time in the world to do your own scoring that's good you're you're one you're one lines motivational talks are still going all right that's it thanks Ben thanks me Antigua you've been real