You can play pickleball four or five days a week and still hit a wall. In fact, simply logging more court time is often what keeps dedicated players from improving.
For many active adults and seniors, recreational instruction creates its own setbacks. Most conventional coaching focuses strictly on paddle mechanics and ignores movement, strategy, and injury prevention. Without a structured framework built for aging bodies, players often hit plateaus, grow frustrated, and risk preventable physical strain.
CJ Johnson, Founder of Better Pickleball, developed an age-aware coaching model to address that disconnect. Drawing on more than 30 years of sports coaching across golf, skiing, and fitness, alongside a decade focused specifically on pickleball players over 50, Johnson’s approach is built around a simple idea: getting older doesn’t mean you have to stop getting better.
Her approach looks beyond shot mechanics to the strategic, physical, and mental factors that shape how recreational players actually perform. Since launching Better Pickleball in 2016—now the sport’s longest-running YouTube instructional channel—Johnson has helped thousands of players move more efficiently, make smarter tactical decisions under pressure, and extend their longevity.
In this Executive Q&A, Johnson breaks down why more court time doesn’t always lead to better play, the tactical mistakes recreational players commonly make, and how players over 50 can continue improving as the game, and their bodies, change.
Q: With decades of experience coaching across golf, skiing, and personal fitness, what key gaps in conventional pickleball instruction inspired you to launch Better Pickleball?
CJ Johnson: I’d spent two decades as a golf professional, hit millions of balls, and never once had golfer’s elbow. Then I picked up pickleball, and within months, I had it.
That told me I didn’t understand something about how I was using my body to hit the ball so I went looking for instruction. Back in 2013, there really wasn’t much. Most of what existed was good players showing other players what worked for them. But being able to play a sport and understanding how to teach it are two very different things.
And the gap wasn’t just mechanics. Nobody was really teaching strategy or how to safely engage in the sport. Pickleball is addictive. I watched people go from sitting on the couch to playing five or six days a week almost overnight, and I saw a lot of players at my courts get injured.
I’d spent my career coaching, and I knew developing a player meant more than teaching them how to hit a shot. You have to understand how the game works strategically, and how the mind and body work together to actually execute it.
So I started studying match footage from major tournaments, looking at the patterns, the positioning, and why points were actually being won and lost. But I also knew I wasn’t going to move like a 20-year-old former tennis player. I had to figure out how to take what I was learning from the best players and apply it to someone like me. My goal was simple: I wanted to get better.
Eventually, I realized that what I was learning could help other players too. I’d always been comfortable using a camera as a teaching tool from my years coaching golf, so I turned it on and started sharing the kind of pickleball instruction I’d been looking for myself.
That’s really how the Better Pickleball YouTube channel started back in 2016.
Q: Better Pickleball organizes player development around three distinct pillars: mechanics, strategy, and athleticism. How does this holistic approach help recreational players overcome persistent performance plateaus?
CJ Johnson: Most players think a plateau means one thing is broken. Fix the mechanics, learn another strategy, and it’ll click. But that’s usually not how it works.
Players are out there three, four, five days a week, playing constantly, and still nothing’s changing. Part of the problem is that playing isn’t practicing. But the bigger problem is that most players aren’t really clear on what they need to do or why.
That’s where the three pillars come in: Mechanical, Strategic, and Athletic. They give us a framework to figure out what’s actually limiting their game.
You might think your backhand needs work, but mechanically there’s really nothing wrong with it. The problem may be that you’re consistently choosing the wrong shot at the wrong time. That’s strategy. Or you can know exactly how to hit the shot and when to use it, but your legs are wobbly after one game, and you can’t execute what your brain wants to do.
And when I talk about the athletic pillar, I’m talking about both the body and the mind. You can have the mechanics and understand the strategy, but if you’re so wrapped up in worrying about what your partner thinks that you can’t focus on what’s happening in front of you, that will limit your performance too.
A gap in any one of those pillars can cap your overall performance, no matter how strong the other two are.
So breaking through a plateau isn’t about doing more. It’s about identifying which pillar is actually holding you back, putting on the right thing, and then integrating it back into your play. That’s why we train the whole player.
Q: A major part of your coaching focuses on active adults and players over 50. What specific movement adjustments or tactical changes are most critical for preserving joint health and preventing common injuries?
CJ Johnson: Here’s the thing: active adults over 50 can absolutely continue to play and be competitive at this sport. But we do have to do some things differently. For me, it comes down to how we prepare, move, and recover.
Preparation starts before you ever hit a ball. A lot of older players hit the courts first thing in the morning, before their bodies have done much moving. They usually get to the courts, they hit a couple of shots, and boom, they’re playing a game.
Give your body a few minutes to get ready for what you’re about to ask it to do. Walk briskly to the courts if you can. Get your heart rate up a little. Then use some dynamic stretching to prepare your arms, legs, and hips before you start playing.
But I think we also need to pay attention to how we’re moving once the game starts. Pickleball is full of fast starts and stops, and those aren’t always easy on an older body.
So moving sooner becomes much more important than trying to move faster. Good positioning and anticipation can keep us from constantly reaching, lunging, and making desperate movements to get to the ball.
That’s where tactics become part of taking care of your body. If you can read what’s happening sooner, you put yourself in a better position and don’t have to ask your body to bail you out on every rally.
And sometimes you have to be willing to let a ball go. One point isn’t worth putting yourself in a position where you’re off balance, chasing down a lob or making a movement your body isn’t prepared to make. You want to be able to play tomorrow too.
Recovery matters just as much. When you’re finished playing, take another few minutes before you get in the car. Cool down, do some stretching, and give your body a chance to transition out of what you’ve just asked it to do. Then eat something, hydrate, and prioritize rest.
The goal isn’t to play cautiously because we’re getting older. It’s to play intelligently enough that we can keep playing, improving, and enjoying this game Several days a week for a very long time.
Q: Many players understand shot mechanics but struggle with rapid decision-making during fast-paced matches. How do you teach players to stay mentally calm and make the right tactical choices under pressure?
CJ Johnson: Mental calmness and tactical decision-making are two different skills that have to work together and can be trained.
On the tactical side, I teach players to use frameworks. Under pressure, I don’t want a player trying to remember 15 different strategies or deciding between every shot they know. I want them to have tools that simplify the game so they can recognize what’s happening and respond.
The BOSS Framework gives players a structure for making those decisions: Blueprint, Objectives, Strategies, and Shots.
Most players learn pickleball from the bottom up. They learn a few shots, then pick up a couple of strategies along the way. But they never really understand the first two parts of the framework: the Blueprint of the game and their Objectives within it. Teaching it from the top down gives players context. They understand what they’re trying to accomplish first, which makes it much easier to choose the right strategy and shot for the situation.
Take the return side. Because of pickleball rules, the return team starts the rally with a positional advantage. Their objective is to keep that advantage by choosing strategies and shots that keep the serving team away from the non-volley zone. If they do that, they win about 75% of those rallies.
They don’t have to think about every shot they could hit. They can read what’s happening in front of them and choose the strategy and shot that best helps them accomplish their objective.
That’s the tactical half.
The mental half allows you to execute those decisions without freezing, and that’s something most players have never actually been exposed to.
We have a lot of tools to train the mind, but one of my favorites is simply giving ourselves permission to make mistakes.
If I’m afraid of making the wrong decision, I’ll hesitate. And in a fast rally, hesitation is usually worse than making an imperfect decision and committing to it.
Learning a sport means we’re going to get things wrong. Improving means we’re going to get things wrong. That has to be okay. If we beat ourselves up every time we make a mistake, we don’t just make it harder to improve; we make it harder to freely use what we’ve already learned.
So I want to give players two things: enough clarity that they don’t have to overthink the decision, and enough mental freedom that they’re willing to commit to it.
Q: Between your digital Academy, YouTube channel, and hands-on training camps, how do you structure your training environments to ensure players build lasting habits rather than temporary fixes?
CJ Johnson: All of my coaching runs through the same framework. The experience is different depending on how you choose to learn.
If you’re watching on YouTube, you’re getting pieces of that framework, but you’re getting whatever the algorithm hands you next. And here’s the thing: the algorithm doesn’t know what’s good for your pickleball game. It just knows that you like pickleball, so it’s going to continue to feed you content, and certainly not all of it is meant for where you are in the game right now.
There’s tremendous value in training in person. At our Better Pickleball Camps, a coach can see things you often can’t see yourself, show you how to make adjustments, and give you immediate feedback. That can accelerate change, and it’s one of the reasons our camps were named the best pickleball camp in the country for intermediate players by Pickleheads.
But lasting improvement also takes repetition. You need time to work on what you’ve learned, revisit it, and integrate it into your game. That’s where digital training has a real advantage. You can learn at your own pace, on your own schedule, and go back to something as many times as you need.
That’s what I’ve worked to bring together in the Better Pickleball Academy Membership. It’s an online training program built around the Pickleball System curriculum, but it’s designed to provide more than just videos to watch. Players get a structured path to follow, coaching and guidance to help them understand what to work on and why, and the ability to revisit that training as often as they need to make it stick.
The goal is to combine the structure and guidance players value from in-person coaching with the repetition and flexibility that online training makes possible. That’s how we help players turn what they’re learning into lasting improvement on the court.
Q: Looking ahead, how do you see the game of pickleball evolving for senior players, and what core mindset must players adopt to keep competing at a high level as they age?
CJ Johnson: I think the game is going to continue to get faster and more athletic, and senior players shouldn’t be afraid of that. But that doesn’t mean you have to play the same game as a 25-year-old to play at a high level.
As we age, our bodies change. Maybe we don’t cover the court quite as quickly, our reaction time changes, or it takes us a little longer to recover. But we can also become much better at recognizing patterns, anticipating what’s coming, positioning ourselves earlier, and making better decisions. Those things matter enormously in pickleball.
The mindset I want players to have is adaptability. Don’t spend your time trying to preserve the player you were five or ten years ago. Keep asking, “What does my game need now?”
That may mean changing how you move, becoming more intentional about strength and mobility, or developing shots that give you more time instead of relying on speed and reaction. It also means continuing to learn as the game itself changes.
I don’t think aging means lowering your expectations. It means being smarter about how you meet them. If you’re willing to keep adapting both your game and your body, there’s no reason you can’t continue improving and competing at a high level for a very long time.
One of my friends, Jim, is 91 this year, and he still plays four or five days a week, takes regular lessons, and competes in tournaments. When I think about what I want my own future in this sport to look like, I think about Jim.
Active adults ready to improve their game can explore CJ Johnson’s training and free coaching resources at Better Pickleball, including the free Must-Have Shots Guide, which covers the essential shots and strategies players need to progress toward the 3.5 level and beyond. https://betterpickleball.com/must-have-pickleball-shots-to-3-5/