A Guide To Pickleball Grips- Continental Vs Eastern
When you first start playing pickleball, you probably don’t think about the grip very much. Most of us just pick up a paddle and start swinging. But, as you get more into this wonderful sport, you might start to wonder how you can improve. Perhaps the competitive spirit in you kicks in and you start looking up ways to win more often.
Even then, the grip might not be one of the first things on your mind. After all, it’s just how you hold the paddle right? What’s the big deal? Well, it turns out the grip is one of the most important aspects of your game. And how you hold the paddle can greatly affect how you swing the paddle and the amount of spin, drive, and loft you’re able to put on the ball.
Today’s article discusses pickleball grips. In particular, we’re going to break down the continental and eastern grips and the benefits of both.
First, it’s important to note that there is no right or wrong when it comes to these grips. Instead, each offers some advantages and disadvantages. There is even an option to switch between the two grips–we’ll get more into that later.
There are four things we’re going to talk about:
Continental and Eastern grip advantages and disadvantages
Grip pressure, how tight should you hold your paddle?
Should I put my finger on the paddle face or not?
Should I change my grip? (Also, a bonus tip!)
1. Continental and Eastern grip advantages and disadvantages
99% of pickleball players use either the continental or eastern grip. The continental grip is probably the most commonly used one. In this grip, your hand is “on top of” the handle, similar to the way you’d grip a hammer. The edge of your paddle is essentially in line with your knuckles and the paddle face is straight.
In the eastern grip, it should feel more like a handshake. Instead of your hand being straight up and down, your hand is turned to the side a bit, and so is the paddle face. When you look down at it, instead of only seeing the edge, you should be able to see some of the back of the paddle. Instead of the handle of the paddle going across your palm-in line with the bottom of your fingers (like it would in the continental grip), it goes at an angle from the bottom of your forefinger to the corner where your wrist and hand meet.
You can see an image of this at the 2:35 mark of this video.
So what are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
For the continental grip, it favors the backhand, but makes the forehand a little tougher.
For the eastern grip, the forehand is easier (especially topspin) and a bit tougher to hit backhands.
So, when choosing a grip, consider what you’re already naturally strong at (forehand or backhand), but also consider what type of shots you do most often. If you’re a singles player, you may use a forehand topspin shot more frequently. Therefore, you may want to consider an eastern grip.
If you’re a doubles player who plays a lot at the net, perhaps the continental grip makes more sense, because you’ll be using your backhand more often.
Next, we’re discussing grip pressure.
2. Grip pressure, how tight should you hold your paddle?
Grip pressure is very important. Some might think that you want to grip the paddle harder for harder shots, but that’s actually faulty thinking. Gripping anything too hard causes tension in your wrist, arms, and body. And tension leads to poor mechanics and less flexibility.
The best way to find your grip pressure is to grip the paddle in a way that puts some tension in your wrist, but does not cause tension up your arm and shoulder. You want a relaxed arm.
The best way to figure this out is to grab your paddle and start squeezing. Notice the point at which your forearm starts to tense up. The muscles move and may even cause your arm to shake a bit. Once you hve that forearm tension, you’re squeezing too tight. Now ease up the pressure and notice how you can move your wrist freely and not feel anything in your arm.
Firm wrists and loose arms–that’s the goal with grip pressure.
3. Should I put my finger on the paddle face or not?
Some people like to play with their forefinger placed across the base of the paddle face. You may do it yourself or you may notice others doing it. The idea behind the forefinger is that it provides more wrist firmness and a solid connecting between your wrist, hand and paddle. This provides more control in drops and dinking. If you’re a current or former tennis player, this may seem foreign to you. However, if you play ping pong, this may happen more naturally.
The advantages of not having your finger across the face is that you have more wrist flexibility and movement. Being able to snap your wrist at will, roll your volleys, and switch quickly from forehand to backhand is important as you move up in levels and improve your play.
4. Should I change my grip? (Also, a bonus tip!)
The last important aspect to your pickleball grip is whether or not you should change it. Switching your grip during a match or even mid-point is totally okay to do. However, it can take time and attention away from the current shot or match scenario. Making a massive grip change takes time. As you improve and play with each grip, you can learn to switch much faster and gain the advantage of switching your grip during any match.
For now, we suggest picking one and playing a whole match with it. Then switching to the other and seeing how differently that works for you. As you start to gain that experience and get the different feelings, you’ll know which grip works better for you and if switching is something worth considering.
Ultimately, it’s about how you feel about your grip and how you perform using it.
For the bonus tip, you’ll want to check out this video from John Cincola Pickleball. He goes over everything covered in this article, but also shows you what each of these grips looks like and provides a bonus tip at the end–that fixes a mistake that many new players make when gripping the paddle.
