10 essential items for your pickleball bag

Whether you’re just hitting at a practice session or advancing through the draw in a tournament, it’s always beneficial to show up prepared. We’ve devised a checklist of items to keep in your pickleball bag so that you don’t have to spend any precious mental energy troubleshooting last minute issues due to your preparation oversights (we’ve all been there!).

We all know that staying hydrated is key to top performance on the court. Viewers of professional pickleball on TV will notice that players often have two bottles on hand at changeovers: one with regular water and one that has a colorful hue. The latter is most likely to be a custom made electrolyte-rich drink.

Even if you aren’t involved in 3 epic matches, the fact that you’re sweating means that you will need to replace lost minerals, specifically sodium (important for fluid balance), potassium (prevents muscle cramps), magnesium (relaxes muscles) and calcium (essential for normal muscle function).

Our favourite option for replenishment? Nuun tablets come in a variety of flavours and formulas tailored towards different types of exertion. They are comprised of clean ingredients and (critically) contain one gram of sugar or less. They are also very conveniently packaged and easy to transport. Ditch the plastic option and fire one of these tablets into a Swell bottle which keeps drinks cold for up to 24 hours.

If you don’t have access to a gym or are pressed for time, keeping a skipping rope in your pickleball bag is a great way to get your blood pumping before your training/match.

Studies have shown that using a skipping rope for 10 minutes is roughly equivalent to running an 8-minute-mile. Not bad, huh? Jumping around also enables you to activate your mind-body connection and start to feel coordinated after a sedentary day sitting at your desk (some days this is no small feat!).

This is an obvious one but after playing indoors for most of the winter, it’s easy to forget to stow a hat in your bag for outdoor hitting. Similarly - especially if you are playing on hard courts in extreme temperatures - having sunscreen on hand to re-apply is also key.

Pickleball players need to avoid greasy products that can compromise the ability to grip your racket, so a spray or even solid formulation are better options than traditional lotion. An option like MD Solar Sciences Quick Dry Body Spray SPF 40+ isn’t sticky, protects against both UVA and UVB rays and is water resistant for 80 minutes. Sounds like a winner to us!

Another admittedly obvious one, but assuming that you can easily grab a towel at an ‘away’ match is a bit dicey. Beyond keeping you dry, towels can become an important part of your ritual between points.

Having the ability to stay in the moment and focus on the next point (rather than dwell on that sitter you just bricked on break point) is facilitated by establishing a common routine or pattern to be used automatically at each interval. You can see this method in action on the tour as most players are zealous adherents of this technique.  

Let’s be honest: pickleball doesn’t qualify as an extreme sport. Even if you get picked off in a doubles match, you can usually walk off the sting of the ball. That said, annoyances like blisters and muscle tightness are common for regular players.

Keeping a compact kit in your bag that has bandages, second skin, ibuprofen and topical creams for temporary muscle pain relief is a good call. Our current favourite is a new product from tried-and-tested Tiger Balm. Their shoulder and back rub isn’t greasy and has the same natural ingredients as the original range: Menthol, Eucalyptus Oil and Camphor.

Now that you have all the equipment you need, what about a nice bag to carry it all? The racket bags pictured below are made for working professionals with active lifestyles who need a bag that works both on and off the court. Take a look at the full range of bags here.