May 23, 2025 • 11 mins
Redlining is a hidden obstacle affecting players at every level. This episode breaks down how staying too amped up impacts performance, limits mental flexibility, and leads to critical mistakes. Learn how to recognize when you're redlining and discover practical tools to regulate your emotional energy for more consistent, composed play on the pickleball court.
Show Notes: https://betterpickleball.com/243-how-redlining-holds-you-back-and-what-to-do-about-it
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome to pickleball Therapy, the podcastdedicated to your pickleball improvement.
My name is Tony Roig.I'm the host of this weekly podcast.
This week, I'm recording the podcaston-site at the PPA Slam event here in
Atlanta, Georgia, at Lifetimein Beach Free Corners.
It's been a great week of being ableto interact with a lot of players.
Many of them are students.
Interact with pro players who I've knownover the years and I've
(00:28):
met at this tournament.
Watch a lot of pro play, watch a lot ofamateur play, watch even junior pro play,
and see what's going on out there.
See what's working, what's not working,get caught up on everything that's
happening in the sport because you're ableto see how the amateurs are navigating the
sport as well as how the pros are tryingto figure out the best way to solve
the puzzle at their level of play.
And then take those lessons into ourvideos and our teaching and
(00:50):
our coaching and our trainings.
We have a training coming up now at theend of May, covering lobs
and how to deal with lobs.
So if you'd like to join us for that,Please, I'll put a link
down in the show notes.You can go to betterpickleball.
com, and there's a link therewhere you can find that training.
And also we have the 50 plus Academy,where we're implementing strategies that
(01:12):
are appropriate for alllevels of pickleballball.
In all types of pickleball, and alsostrategies that are
specific to 50 plus play.
But this is part of the work that we do ascoaches is coming to events like this to
see exactly what's going on outthere with the sport of pickleball.
And what I want to talk about in thispodcast, in this episode of the podcast,
It has to do with redlining.
I saw a lot of it on thecourts, both amateur and pro.
(01:35):
And I'm going to focus onone example in particular.
But redlining is the idea thatgetting too amped, getting too excited,
getting too far over on one side.
If you want to think about it this way,think about it like a car has a red line.
Have you seen a car that has a tachometerin it that shows you
(01:56):
revolutions per minute?
They always have thatred section on there.
Basically, it's like a warning that says,don't red line, don't go into the red
zone, at least not for an extended periodof time, because you'll
burn the engine up.
As human beings, we're not dissimilar inthe sense that we have a certain amount of
bandwidth that we can handle,that our brains can handle.
And we can red line it sometimes so we cantake it into that
(02:19):
level of stress and anxiety andpressure for short bursts at time.
But staying there for along time can't hurt us.
And that's what we're going to talkabout in this episode of the podcast.
And then at the end, I'll give you acouple of ideas that might help you deal
with that if that's something that youdeal with or if you see a
friend of yours that has this.
And what I'm surprised at is,isn't that it happens, right?
(02:42):
It's going to happen.
What I'm surprised at is I'm getting thesense that it's actually something that
players are affirmatively trying to do.
In other words,it's one thing to say that it's
accidental, meaning like, orjust something to happen, right?
So that's just how II'm programmed, right?
And so I behave that way,but that's what I'm used to.
(03:04):
It seems to me that this is somethingthat's being trained out there,
something that's being taught.
And what makes me think that is I'vewatched several junior PPA
matches, and shout out to the PPA.
I think it's wonderful what they're doing.
They let the junior players play onthe same court that the pros play on.
There's two courts that the pros play on.
They have Championship Court andGrandstand Court, and they had the gold
(03:26):
medal matches of the juniors on theGrandstand Court while the time that the
semifinals for the pro players aregoing on on the Championship Court.
So that was really cool to see.
But anyway, but I'm watching these juniorplayers play and very over the top,
12-year-olds, 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds.
A lot of some trash talking between them,which I didn't see anybody
(03:48):
correcting, which is unfortunate because Ithink that's something that should be
corrected at that age or else itgets worse.
But the other thing I saw was a lot ofbasically, right here, right now.
Let's go.We got it.
Let's go.Come on, right here, right now.
A lot of that talk.
And again, these are children.
These are teenagers and childrenthat are basically so amped up.
(04:13):
I mean, there's 14-year-old strokeout there waiting to happen.
And so it leads me to believe thatthere's some coaching going on out there.
There's some training going on out therethat has this idea that you're
supposed to be 120% all the time.
And that's just notsomething that's feasible.
And I'll work throughthat in a second with you.
Just a couple of different ideas.
(04:33):
It's a couple of scenarios so you can seehow it really doesn't
work to your advantage.
Where it really stood out was there wasa really excellent quarter final match.
If you like pro pickleball, it's a reallyinteresting match to watch between
Federico Staxrude, Hayden Patrick, and J.W.
Johnson, and C.J.
Klinger.
It's quarter finals, but it wasbasically finals-level match.
(04:55):
And back and forth match, really goodrallies, really good battles by everybody.
They're in game three, sothey've split games one and two.
They're in game three.It's roughly tied.
I can't remember the exact where it is.Somewhere around 6: 06-ish.
And Federico Sackrutt hits a...
There's a really Interesting rally.
(05:16):
He hits a good shot, and he getsreally excited about it, right?
Red lines, if you will.
The problem is that he stays red-lined.
And so whether it's the next rally or acouple of rallies later, he's serving He's
serving for the first time,serves it into the net.
And when I say he's serving for the firsttime since that point,
(05:36):
so since he got amped up.
So he serves that into the net.
One or two rallies later,he misses a return of serve.
Critical game three, top 10 playermissing shots that he shouldn't miss.
Why?
Because he red-linedand because he was stuck in red-lined.
Like his accelerator footwas stuck down, right?
And he was just revved up too high.
(05:57):
And so it cost his performance.
Now, maybe they still lose the match.I can't tell you that.
But I can tell you for sure that hisred-lining in that match affected his
ability to perform in that situation.
So what I want you...
Let's work through a couple of scenariosnow and let's play with it a little
bit and see how it affects you.
Remember, red-lining isyou're just super amped.
(06:19):
You're just like, whoa, let's go.
Just really super amped up.
If you think about being ampedup, you have no bandwidth left.
You're already at the extreme.
So you have nowhere to go.There's no cushion.
And so you can see a situation whereyou actually have a really nice rally.
It's a fantastic rally, where it'sa fantastic rally back and forth.
(06:41):
All of a sudden, you have a greatsave and you do a great thing.
You don't feel it, right?
Because you're going, and I've seen thisout here where players are going like,
whoa, after a miss four shot or miss thirdshot or just like nothing, rallies, right?
I mean, nothing's happened,but they're acting like it was like
the rally of the The Millennium.
So when you have the rally of themillennium, where are you
(07:04):
going to go from there?
You have no cushion.
You have nowhere to go, nowhere to rev theengine that you can go
to in a good situation.
And perhaps more importantly, Youhave nowhere to go in a bad situation.
Because you will face adversityon the pickleball court.
The pros do for sure.
You will in your matches if you're playinga level, you're going to be challenged
(07:25):
and you're supposed to be challenged.
That's what you signed up for.
And so if you have If youhave no bandwidth, no cushion left in
your revving, if you will, because you'rered-lined, how are you going to handle it
when things go sideways onyou, when things turn adverse?
You can't because you got nowhere to go.
(07:47):
And so this red-lining idea, this ideathat you're going to red-line all the
time, you're always going to be 110 %, isjust not a sustainable way
of engaging with the sport.
It's not healthy for you.
It's not good for you from just apsychological health standpoint.
Physiologically, either to be all ampedup all the time, not good for you.
But the kicker is this, you're not evengoing to get better performance out of it.
(08:09):
What you want to learn how to do is how toregulate that tachometer, how to regulate
yourself from green to yellowto red in your emotion state.
And that's a process of time.
And I would suggest to you that the tip Iwant you to walk away from this
episode with is start with recognition.
And what I mean by that isnotice if you're redlining.
(08:33):
So if the other team misses a nothingshot and you're like, well, let's go.
You don't like that?
Probably redlining.
There's no call forthat in that situation.
And so you're so amped up that you'rereleasing it in ways that objectively
don't make any sense because you'retreating that the same as you
(08:55):
would the rally of the millennium.
And that objectively makes no sense.
So the first The next step would berecognition of feeling
redlining all the time.
And then you're going to work on sometechniques, some breathing techniques.
We have another episode we coverwith some breathing techniques.
You can Google that.
Just the pickleball Therapy breathingtechniques, and you can find that episode.
If I can find it for you, I'll put it inthe show notes, but in case
(09:16):
it's not there, you can find it.
Work on some breathingtechniques between rallies.
And think of the time between your ralliesas a moment to let the foot
off the gas, if you will.
So in the rally, maybe at first it'sgoing to be hard because you're going.
And so your brain starts going, everythinggets excited and you're just,
let's go, let's go, let's go.And you're revving too much.
Between rallies, let go of the gas.
(09:39):
Let that gas, let that tachometer comedown, let the engine unwind a little bit.
Breathing techniques area good way of doing that.
Releasing the paddle from yourplaying hand is another technique.
Sends a signal to the brain thateverything is fine, and they're
not in danger, everything's good.
Those are things that you can do.
But be mindful of red-lining and bemindful of If you have a significant other
(10:01):
who plays pick-up on red lines, a goodfriend of yours is red lines, things
like that, share this episode with them.
It's a way for them to maybe come at thegame a little differently, avoid that
redlining that's negatively affecting thempersonally and also negatively
affecting their There we go.We'll see you in our play.
So that's this week's podcast.I hope you enjoyed it.
I hope the sound quality was goodenough from the on-site location here.
(10:22):
Remember, we have that upcoming trainingif you want to join us for that.
We also have the 50 plus Betterpickleball Academy, where we have...
You get basically CJ, my myself and otheramazing coaches over 50
showing you tips and strategiesthat are specific to 50 plus plays.
If you're a 50 plus pickleball player, youlove the sport, I'll put a link in the
show notes where you canjoin us inside the academy.
(10:43):
That's that for this week's podcast.
As always, if you have a minute to rateand review it, really
appreciate you doing that.
If you think this podcast was helpfulto you, share with your friends.
Remember, particularly those who you thinkare red-lining, your husband, your wife,
your sister, yourbrother, sister, whoever.
Share this podcast with them, and maybeit'll help them and on a path away from
red-lining and a more balancedapproach to their play.
(11:06):
I hope you have a great week, and I'll seeyou on the next episode
of Pickleball Therapy.Be welcome.
Welcome to pickleball Therapy, the podcastdedicated to your pickleball improvement.
My name is Tony Roig.I'm the host of this weekly podcast.
This week, I'm recording the podcaston-site at the PPA Slam event here in
Atlanta, Georgia, at Lifetimein Beach Free Corners.
It's been a great week of being ableto interact with a lot of players.
Many of them are students.
Interact with pro players who I've knownover the years and I've
(00:28):
met at this tournament.
Watch a lot of pro play, watch a lot ofamateur play, watch even junior pro play,
and see what's going on out there.
See what's working, what's not working,get caught up on everything that's
happening in the sport because you're ableto see how the amateurs are navigating the
sport as well as how the pros are tryingto figure out the best way to solve
the puzzle at their level of play.
And then take those lessons into ourvideos and our teaching and
(00:50):
our coaching and our trainings.
We have a training coming up now at theend of May, covering lobs
and how to deal with lobs.
So if you'd like to join us for that,Please, I'll put a link
down in the show notes.You can go to betterpickleball.
com, and there's a link therewhere you can find that training.
And also we have the 50 plus Academy,where we're implementing strategies that
(01:12):
are appropriate for alllevels of pickleballball.
In all types of pickleball, and alsostrategies that are
specific to 50 plus play.
But this is part of the work that we do ascoaches is coming to events like this to
see exactly what's going on outthere with the sport of pickleball.
And what I want to talk about in thispodcast, in this episode of the podcast,
It has to do with redlining.
I saw a lot of it on thecourts, both amateur and pro.
(01:35):
And I'm going to focus onone example in particular.
But redlining is the idea thatgetting too amped, getting too excited,
getting too far over on one side.
If you want to think about it this way,think about it like a car has a red line.
Have you seen a car that has a tachometerin it that shows you
(01:56):
revolutions per minute?
They always have thatred section on there.
Basically, it's like a warning that says,don't red line, don't go into the red
zone, at least not for an extended periodof time, because you'll
burn the engine up.
As human beings, we're not dissimilar inthe sense that we have a certain amount of
bandwidth that we can handle,that our brains can handle.
And we can red line it sometimes so we cantake it into that
(02:19):
level of stress and anxiety andpressure for short bursts at time.
But staying there for along time can't hurt us.
And that's what we're going to talkabout in this episode of the podcast.
And then at the end, I'll give you acouple of ideas that might help you deal
with that if that's something that youdeal with or if you see a
friend of yours that has this.
And what I'm surprised at is,isn't that it happens, right?
(02:42):
It's going to happen.
What I'm surprised at is I'm getting thesense that it's actually something that
players are affirmatively trying to do.
In other words,it's one thing to say that it's
accidental, meaning like, orjust something to happen, right?
So that's just how II'm programmed, right?
And so I behave that way,but that's what I'm used to.
(03:04):
It seems to me that this is somethingthat's being trained out there,
something that's being taught.
And what makes me think that is I'vewatched several junior PPA
matches, and shout out to the PPA.
I think it's wonderful what they're doing.
They let the junior players play onthe same court that the pros play on.
There's two courts that the pros play on.
They have Championship Court andGrandstand Court, and they had the gold
(03:26):
medal matches of the juniors on theGrandstand Court while the time that the
semifinals for the pro players aregoing on on the Championship Court.
So that was really cool to see.
But anyway, but I'm watching these juniorplayers play and very over the top,
12-year-olds, 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds.
A lot of some trash talking between them,which I didn't see anybody
(03:48):
correcting, which is unfortunate because Ithink that's something that should be
corrected at that age or else itgets worse.
But the other thing I saw was a lot ofbasically, right here, right now.
Let's go.We got it.
Let's go.Come on, right here, right now.
A lot of that talk.
And again, these are children.
These are teenagers and childrenthat are basically so amped up.
(04:13):
I mean, there's 14-year-old strokeout there waiting to happen.
And so it leads me to believe thatthere's some coaching going on out there.
There's some training going on out therethat has this idea that you're
supposed to be 120% all the time.
And that's just notsomething that's feasible.
And I'll work throughthat in a second with you.
Just a couple of different ideas.
(04:33):
It's a couple of scenarios so you can seehow it really doesn't
work to your advantage.
Where it really stood out was there wasa really excellent quarter final match.
If you like pro pickleball, it's a reallyinteresting match to watch between
Federico Staxrude, Hayden Patrick, and J.W.
Johnson, and C.J.
Klinger.
It's quarter finals, but it wasbasically finals-level match.
(04:55):
And back and forth match, really goodrallies, really good battles by everybody.
They're in game three, sothey've split games one and two.
They're in game three.It's roughly tied.
I can't remember the exact where it is.Somewhere around 6: 06-ish.
And Federico Sackrutt hits a...
There's a really Interesting rally.
(05:16):
He hits a good shot, and he getsreally excited about it, right?
Red lines, if you will.
The problem is that he stays red-lined.
And so whether it's the next rally or acouple of rallies later, he's serving He's
serving for the first time,serves it into the net.
And when I say he's serving for the firsttime since that point,
(05:36):
so since he got amped up.
So he serves that into the net.
One or two rallies later,he misses a return of serve.
Critical game three, top 10 playermissing shots that he shouldn't miss.
Why?
Because he red-linedand because he was stuck in red-lined.
Like his accelerator footwas stuck down, right?
And he was just revved up too high.
(05:57):
And so it cost his performance.
Now, maybe they still lose the match.I can't tell you that.
But I can tell you for sure that hisred-lining in that match affected his
ability to perform in that situation.
So what I want you...
Let's work through a couple of scenariosnow and let's play with it a little
bit and see how it affects you.
Remember, red-lining isyou're just super amped.
(06:19):
You're just like, whoa, let's go.
Just really super amped up.
If you think about being ampedup, you have no bandwidth left.
You're already at the extreme.
So you have nowhere to go.There's no cushion.
And so you can see a situation whereyou actually have a really nice rally.
It's a fantastic rally, where it'sa fantastic rally back and forth.
(06:41):
All of a sudden, you have a greatsave and you do a great thing.
You don't feel it, right?
Because you're going, and I've seen thisout here where players are going like,
whoa, after a miss four shot or miss thirdshot or just like nothing, rallies, right?
I mean, nothing's happened,but they're acting like it was like
the rally of the The Millennium.
So when you have the rally of themillennium, where are you
(07:04):
going to go from there?
You have no cushion.
You have nowhere to go, nowhere to rev theengine that you can go
to in a good situation.
And perhaps more importantly, Youhave nowhere to go in a bad situation.
Because you will face adversityon the pickleball court.
The pros do for sure.
You will in your matches if you're playinga level, you're going to be challenged
(07:25):
and you're supposed to be challenged.
That's what you signed up for.
And so if you have If youhave no bandwidth, no cushion left in
your revving, if you will, because you'rered-lined, how are you going to handle it
when things go sideways onyou, when things turn adverse?
You can't because you got nowhere to go.
(07:47):
And so this red-lining idea, this ideathat you're going to red-line all the
time, you're always going to be 110 %, isjust not a sustainable way
of engaging with the sport.
It's not healthy for you.
It's not good for you from just apsychological health standpoint.
Physiologically, either to be all ampedup all the time, not good for you.
But the kicker is this, you're not evengoing to get better performance out of it.
(08:09):
What you want to learn how to do is how toregulate that tachometer, how to regulate
yourself from green to yellowto red in your emotion state.
And that's a process of time.
And I would suggest to you that the tip Iwant you to walk away from this
episode with is start with recognition.
And what I mean by that isnotice if you're redlining.
(08:33):
So if the other team misses a nothingshot and you're like, well, let's go.
You don't like that?
Probably redlining.
There's no call forthat in that situation.
And so you're so amped up that you'rereleasing it in ways that objectively
don't make any sense because you'retreating that the same as you
(08:55):
would the rally of the millennium.
And that objectively makes no sense.
So the first The next step would berecognition of feeling
redlining all the time.
And then you're going to work on sometechniques, some breathing techniques.
We have another episode we coverwith some breathing techniques.
You can Google that.
Just the pickleball Therapy breathingtechniques, and you can find that episode.
If I can find it for you, I'll put it inthe show notes, but in case
(09:16):
it's not there, you can find it.
Work on some breathingtechniques between rallies.
And think of the time between your ralliesas a moment to let the foot
off the gas, if you will.
So in the rally, maybe at first it'sgoing to be hard because you're going.
And so your brain starts going, everythinggets excited and you're just,
let's go, let's go, let's go.And you're revving too much.
Between rallies, let go of the gas.
(09:39):
Let that gas, let that tachometer comedown, let the engine unwind a little bit.
Breathing techniques area good way of doing that.
Releasing the paddle from yourplaying hand is another technique.
Sends a signal to the brain thateverything is fine, and they're
not in danger, everything's good.
Those are things that you can do.
But be mindful of red-lining and bemindful of If you have a significant other
(10:01):
who plays pick-up on red lines, a goodfriend of yours is red lines, things
like that, share this episode with them.
It's a way for them to maybe come at thegame a little differently, avoid that
redlining that's negatively affecting thempersonally and also negatively
affecting their There we go.We'll see you in our play.
So that's this week's podcast.I hope you enjoyed it.
I hope the sound quality was goodenough from the on-site location here.
(10:22):
Remember, we have that upcoming trainingif you want to join us for that.
We also have the 50 plus Betterpickleball Academy, where we have...
You get basically CJ, my myself and otheramazing coaches over 50
showing you tips and strategiesthat are specific to 50 plus plays.
If you're a 50 plus pickleball player, youlove the sport, I'll put a link in the
show notes where you canjoin us inside the academy.
(10:43):
That's that for this week's podcast.
As always, if you have a minute to rateand review it, really
appreciate you doing that.
If you think this podcast was helpfulto you, share with your friends.
Remember, particularly those who you thinkare red-lining, your husband, your wife,
your sister, yourbrother, sister, whoever.
Share this podcast with them, and maybeit'll help them and on a path away from
red-lining and a more balancedapproach to their play.
(11:06):
I hope you have a great week, and I'll seeyou on the next episode
of Pickleball Therapy.Be welcome.
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