Tennis, ping pong, fell… Pickleball! A new racket sport is ready to make its way and conquer many athletes and enthusiasts in our country.
Fun and fast, the Pickleball combines elements of tennis, badminton and table tennis, it is essentially played in doubles, but singles is also very popular. It is a discipline suitable for all ages and skill levels and is particularly appreciated for its accessibility and social aspect; this is why it is destined to become un must among racket enthusiasts and even those at a beginner level.
It is often defined as a sort of “slow motion tennis” and the new generations have already shown appreciation, especially in the United States, where it appears to be sport with the fastest growth, counting to date approx six million practitioners and one hundred thousand members of the USA Pickleball Association.
In just 18 months, 37 countries have joined the International Pickleball Federation and now the goal is to make this a sporting activity an Olympic discipline.
Pickleball: a little history
Born in 1965 in the United States, this sport was invented by a member of the US congress, Joel Pritchard, along with friends Bill Bell and Barney McCallum. Their goal was to entertain and entertain bored children on holiday with easy to find equipment. It is no coincidence that today this discipline is very widespread in American schools that include pickleball as a physical activity for students.
It only arrived in Italy in 2018when theItalian Pickleball Association (AIP) based in the province of Pescara. Here, in 2017, the first three dedicated fields were built, where the athletes of the national team train.
The AIP is an official member of the International Pickleball Federation and, in the summer of 2018, organized the second edition of the Bainbridge Cup, intercontinental team competition.
The benefits of Pickleball
Pickleball represents a total body workoutin fact the legs are involved in every shot and every shot, the abdominals they contribute to maintaining the position and the shoulders accompany all the moves.
It also requires coordination, by stimulating both body and mind, it improves cardiovascular health and can promote socialization and general well-being. Do you want to try?
To date, there are still few centers that offer this discipline, among these there is an oasis of sport and relaxation in the San Siro area, which has decided to enrich its proposal with a course dedicated precisely to making people discover this innovation.
«The main phase for carrying out a good Pickleball course is certainly the preliminary warm-up phase», he explains Massimo Lacarbonara, Deputy General Manager and Sport Manager of Aspria Harbor Club in Milan, and instructor of one of the few courses still available in Italy. «We then move on to the actual work part, both with a live ball, to simulate the game and learn the exchanges and, thanks to the use of the basket, to build the automatisms and define or clean up the technical gestures. The final part, then, is based on the actual game.”
