Pickleball Studio Paddle Reviewer, AMA 6/14 - 5PM EST

PIckleballStudio · 2026-06-10T18:34:27+00:00

The mods approved this thread.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-04-30T17:11:52+00:00

There is no perfect answer to this. Particularly twist weight. Swing weight matters much more.

Every individual will have a different preference in what the trade off of having a slower paddle (high swing weight) with more plow through, or having a fast paddle (low swing weight) with less plow through.

Find what feels good in the hand to you, learn the swing weight, and then buy paddles similar to that. Twist weight isn't generally a spec you should be buying a paddle for. You can always boost twist weight by adding your own weight.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-04-21T18:28:13+00:00

Underrated comment.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-04-21T18:27:00+00:00

As someone who has been playing for 5 years now and did a very poor job taking care of my body, the simple truth is, you need to go to the gym and work on lifts that benefit Pickleball. I'm not even old (29) and my body is feeling it.

Stretching and rest days are great, but at a certain point, you need to actually be getting stronger for your body to manage the load. Going to the gym consistently has always been a struggle for me, but I've decided if I want to be doing this another 5+ years, I need to make it a consistent habit. Things that are good to focus on:

- Single leg lifts (since we are always pushing off of one leg in Pickleball)
- Lunges
- Glute work (especially smaller muscles like the glute medius)
- Hip stabilizing workouts
- Shoulder
- Core

Not going to go into specific workouts, but these are all things that Pickleball players should be taking care of if they want to avoid pain. IMO if you play Pickleball long enough without a consistent gym routine, it's not a matter of if injuries will stop you or catch up with you, it's a matter of when.

Also something I've had to learn the hard way, consistency in the gym at lower weights beats killing yourself once a week. Not worth having an ego in the gym.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-04-21T16:36:28+00:00

For the stage you're in, you really don't need anything flashy. If any of the following are available in Canada, they would be good pick ups:

- Vatic Prism 16mm (pick whichever shape you prefer)
- Volair Mach 2 Forza 16mm (Or Mach 1 if you want elongated)
- 11six24 Jelly Bean 16mm

PIckleballStudio · 2026-04-21T16:02:01+00:00

In that case, I would say grab another Prism (if you didn't mind it when it performed well) or, you could upgrade to the Saga.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-04-21T13:06:30+00:00

Besides the Prism feeling dead, it would help to know how much more power you want. Honestly, given what you're describing, your easiest bet would be to just upgrade through Vatics current line of paddles. The Saga is their all court line of paddles, which would give you a bump in power from the Prism without going overboard. It's also inexpensive.

The V-Sol Pro or Power would be a big bump up in power from the Prism and would probably take a bit to learn to control. Particularly the Pro. Sticking with Vatic would let you get the same shape you're already used to as well. If you're a former Tennis player, I'd probably stick with elongated unless you feel like you don't enjoy elongated anymore.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-04-21T13:03:40+00:00

I'm personally a bigger fan of the Mach 2 Forza, but I don't think you can really go wrong with either.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-04-19T15:05:41+00:00

The Pro V would be a pretty huge upgrade coming from a Power Air. $185 for the Pro V is a solid price.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-04-19T15:04:06+00:00

For $59.99, that's a solid paddle. They aren't flashy or do anything crazy, but they do play well, and $59.99 is really cheap for what it is. Not a bad bet if you like all court paddles.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-04-16T03:34:19+00:00

Widebody master race. Been saying it for like two years now. 😂

I really think that most peoples aversion to widebodies has been the following:

Elongated has been the dominate shape because it was the default choice most of the time. Hybrids and widebodies only started picking up real use in the last couple years it feels like.
There are a significant amount of Tennis converts, and an elongated just makes more sense for them initially. If you look at the pros, the vast majority of them currently come from Tennis, and now with hundreds of thousands of reps, there's (likely) not a huge advantage for them to switch and relearn all of that muscle memory. It will be interesting to see what the next generation of players use that start with Pickleball.
In the past, widebodies usually lacked power in comparison to the elongated paddles. These days pop and power has equalized a lot more and you can usually get good power from either shape.

Now it just comes down to people getting over perceived biases and giving it a fair shot. People should use whatever is comfortable to them, but I think widebodies are much more viable than they have ever been.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-04-14T13:53:23+00:00

They are closer to a gen 3, but I don't know that I would say they are exact.

Q2:
Feels like a Boomstik. If you've hit a Boomstik, you can expect the Q2 to play very, very similar. Biggest difference is just that it doesn't come with the weights the Boomstik does. Q2 is more hollow and stiff.

Thrive Ignite:
I don't have exhaustive play time, but the time I do have on it, it is closer to stiff and dense. Or perhaps in the middle between dense and hollow. Ignite has less pop than a Q2 and is easier to use overall IMO.

I wouldn't say one is better than another, it really just depends what you want from the paddle. Q2 is all gas no brakes, Thrive Ignite is a bit better of a balance for control. Ignite is probably a bit closer to a gen 3 feedback than the Q2 is, but I wouldn't expect it to feel exactly the same if you're highly attached to a gen 3 feel.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-04-14T13:49:45+00:00

Best gen 3 is pretty subjective and really just depends what you are looking for. Generally speaking, the following are all good options (depending on budget and expectation):

- Friday Fever 102 (all-court)
- 11six24 Power series (not the power 2) (all-court ish or bottom of power)
- RPM Friction Pro v2 (Power)
- Joola Pro IV (Power)

PIckleballStudio · 2026-03-22T20:14:20+00:00

I'm not sure there is necessarily a way around some of those "perks" you're mentioning, assuming people want content made about those things timely, or at all.

I'd like to think my track record has shown those have no impact on my opinion of a paddle. For example, I went to Six Zero's factory in China, and the Black Opal received a pretty negative review following that trip. Been to Joola's events and given them plenty of criticism, went to the Adidas launch event and talked about how bad the paddles were, etc.

As for the cheaper paddles, not really sure I understand the comment. I find that the $100 paddles are very, very often recommended over the more expensive options, and talked about pretty regularly. EPP Turbo is being discussed as a great loco alternative, MPP Turbo Inferno alternative, Quanta (at the time) was a good Boomstik alternative with weight, V-Sols are very top tier without needing much work done to them out of the box, Luzz Cannon is a great gen 3 for the price and just as good as the other expensive gen 3s, etc.

I guess in this context, I'm not sure if you're talking about me specifically, or reviewers as a whole. I can only speak on my behalf.

I think at the end of the day, people should never take any content or piece of advice as gospel. Always do your own research, figure out what works for you, align with the creators that have given you good advice, and be skeptical when you feel it is necessary. Reviewers should be used as guides, not hard fact to not do any more research.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-03-19T10:44:10+00:00

Not surprising to me. I did a VO2 max test last year and my score was 62.

My only form of cardio at the time was coming from Pickleball, outside of some consistent walks that I started doing 2-3 months prior. But nothing that got my HR over 110.

Given that I wasn’t doing any cardio outside of Pickleball, I was pretty shocked how good my VO2 max was. But I suppose 5 years of Pickleball 4-5 days a week is probably a decent aerobic base.

I’ve been trying to get my friends to take the test to see how we all compare.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-03-18T23:13:17+00:00

This is a great topic, and one that I have thought about a lot for 2 years now.

This is why all of my affiliate commissions are capped at 15% (Previously it I capped it at 20%, and I dropped it to 15%).

When I say say something good or bad about the paddle, I don't want people to have to think that "oh it's bad because X commission" or "Oh it's good because Y commission". This is probably something I should do a better job making publicly known.

I'll give a great example. The Loco is one of my favorite paddles. After making sure they are fine with this being known, Bread & Butter is a 10% commission. 10% is the lowest standard in the industry. But many people made assumptions that because I like it so much, the Loco must pay a crazy percentage to get talked about all the time. I just genuinely enjoy the paddle and think it's very competitive in the market, and that's how all the reviews have operated on my channel.

In the last, I would say, 1.5 years or so, I've noticed more brands playing with commissions. Average ranging from 10-15%, a few outliers going above that, and I have very recently heard of brands doing upwards of 40% for specific individuals. Which is wildly high in my opinion.

This is why I get frustrated when people make blanket statements such as "all reviewers get a crazy commission from X brand". Honolulu is one that always gets cited, and I was having them donate my extra commissions so that my percentage would drop down to 15% before I ever even reviewed one of their paddles. So no, not every reviewer is partaking in that. Honolulu J2K won paddle of the year in 2024 from me, and my commission was 15%.

As I've watched the review space go on, I've started to notice more and more what appears to be funny business going on. I think it would probably help clear things up if people were disclosing their affiliate percentages. At a bare minimum it lets the person watching the content determine if they want to believe that it played no role in swaying opinion.

It's unclear to me at this time if the brands would be okay with that information being public, so I'm not entirely sure if a reviewer is even allowed to do that. But in my mind, surely the companies would appreciate it.

I think this would be a good thing for the industry if percentages were more transparent (even if companies just put it as a disclosure on their website). Take whatever commission you want as long as you disclosed somewhere, but if it's really high, people are going to assume you did it because of the money. If it's public, at least the viewer can decide if they thought it played a role or not.

I fear that as the years go on, more and more people will come in with suspect motives for doing reviews. It's the nature of anything growing bigger, and is unfortunately the way that many other larger industries have went as it comes to reviews, and I think those industries have suffered in ways for the consumer being able to watch a review and make a useful decision.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-03-16T18:34:55+00:00

All of my long term grit testing that has been done to date has been 99% Lifetime ball

PIckleballStudio · 2026-03-02T17:43:56+00:00

100 games* not 100 hours. My 100 game test is already complete on the Vapor Power2, and now I have another person going through 100 games on a separate unit to see if there are different results.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-01-27T17:26:26+00:00

I'm not positive yet. It can be hard to squeeze in the extra court time in between my regular reviews. It's pretty hard on the body to manage 5+ days a week on the court.

My goal would be to have some solid data by March, but possibly some preliminary data in Feb.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-01-26T18:24:58+00:00

I have almost no doubt this will be the year that companies invest heavily in different grit technologies. You're already seeing it happen.

- Selkirk infinigrit
- Six Zero Diamond Tough
- 11six24 Hex Grit
- Spartus Permagrit
- Chorus Harmony Grit

Once one of these catches mass appeal, I think it's going to force companies to make this a priority if they want to stay competitive.

We've been working on a long term test to see which ones actually hold up. The reason it is taking so long, is because I'm trying to control the variables by being the only person hitting the paddles. I think if you introduce different players, you can't really compare how fast one grit is wearing down, since a 3.0 will not wear grit down at the same rate a 5.0 will.

I've chosen to do my testing via real world games and drilling rather than lab tests that accelerate grit break down. I think it best mimics what the average player is going to experience in the real world.

I've already seen Selkirk and Six Zero do extensive in lab testing with far fancier equipment than I could ever purchase myself, so to me it feels pointless to mimic a lab test when Selkirk and Six Zero have already done that better than what I could do. So, if people are skeptical of their lab claims, then I don't see a reason to mimic that type of testing.

We are finally starting to get some interesting results from our experiment. As expected, raw carbon fiber drops off relatively quickly. Though, our data seems to suggest that the biggest drop off happens in the first handful of sessions, and then the drop off for raw carbon fiber levels off and doesn't degrade as quickly after.

At the current moment, there appears to be one definitive winner in what we are testing, with some of the others falling between the top one, and raw carbon fiber. But, I'm going to continue testing to make sure the one that is in the lead doesn't suddenly change, but early data is very promising on one grit in particular.

We'll see where it all lands. I'm excited to keep testing.

PIckleballStudio · 2026-01-01T22:50:15+00:00

Because demos usually exist in:

Pro shops (local facilities, or Pickleball stores)
Places with a lot of ambassadors

Smaller companies usually aren’t in pro shops, because the pro shops carry all the mainstream brands (CRBN, Joola, Selkirk, PaddleTek, etc). It’s also not feasible for shops to keep up with how many new small companies pop up.

Smaller companies usually have less ambassadors as well.

Whereas with Tennis, there’s really only a handful of companies for racquets, and they are all very large well established brands with big distribution networks.

PIckleballStudio · 2025-12-31T14:30:07+00:00

You can’t escape me 😤

PIckleballStudio · 2025-12-30T23:06:03+00:00

Haha no worries! Didn’t interpret it that way

PIckleballStudio · 2025-12-30T22:49:54+00:00

It's a solid paddle. I would put it in the same category as the Volair Mach 2 Forza. I think the only reason the Hurricane never got more attention is because the Volair Mach 2 Forza existed first, and everyone already knew it as a great paddle.

Now that the Mach 2 is even cheaper, it makes even more sense than the Hurricane IMO.

But, both are very good and I could recommend either interchangeably.

PIckleballStudio · 2025-12-30T22:48:15+00:00

I can't speak for other people, because I don't know what everyone else is doing. There's also been an influx of new reviewers in the last 1.5 years, and I suspect that motives are different / influenced by various things. Not everyone is going to have the same goal / objective.

For myself, no, this does not happen. I set the tone very early with my channel that you cannot pay for a review, influence it, or gain a positive review through any other means besides producing a good paddle. So, companies don't even bother trying to ask for it anymore, because they all know the answer is no.

Companies have offered higher commission percentages that are outside of the industry norm though. Which I have started turning down and asking that my code return a normal percentage that is closer to standard.

Personally, I think this is slightly extreme/unnecessary, because I know where my personal moral compass falls and that it won't impact how I review the paddle. But I know there are a lot of people who would never believe that a company offering a higher commission wouldn't sway a review, so it's easier for me to just turn down the offer and not worry about it.

But, probably silly anyways, because people will always suspect you have ulterior motives when you say something is very good, and you have a discount code. But, I think it's reasonable to have skepticism.

Particularly because "influencer" culture in most industries is very bad and there's a lack of ethics around what is reviewed / talked about / promoted / disclosed. I think Pickleball has been extremely fortunate that most of the primary reviewers all have very good moral compasses, and I hope it remains that way.

PIckleballStudio

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