Are You Fit, or Athletic? They are Not the Same

Understanding this difference could transform how you train

As a strength and conditioning coach for 20 years, I’ve asked thousand of clients, what their goals are, and almost all of them said some variation of “I want to improve my fitness”. That’s great, but when it comes to pickleball, we need to be more than fit. 

Fitness is about how well you perform predictable tasks, like running a marathoner, biking 50 miles, or cranking out 10 flawless pushups. Athleticism is different. Athleticism is how well your body handles the unpredictable—like lunging for a dink that clips the net, twisting awkwardly to handle that speedup, or sprinting to the baseline for a lob you definitely thought was going out.

You can be very fit and still not very athletic.

Why? Because traditional fitness usually happens in controlled environments. Same moves, same surfaces, same reps, same weights. Your body gets efficient at those exact movements, and only those movements. A marathon runner may be extremely fit, but that comes at the expense of other areas, including athleticism. Pickleball, just like life, can be messy. Things come at you from weird angles, off-bounces, and unexpected spins. If your body isn’t trained for variability, it’s fragile, no matter how much time you spend in the gym or on the road.

Athletic training is the antidote.

Instead of logging miles or doing perfect squats on repeat, athletic training mixes it up, different stances, different depths, different speeds. Instead of only pressing barbells straight overhead, you press awkward objects at odd angles. Sandbags, water jugs, medicine balls, things that shift and fight back, force your body to adapt. For example, take great exercise like the suitcase carry, walking with a heavy dumbbell or kettlebell in one hand, and add an exercise band to the handle and grip that. Now you are dealing with a jiggling, bouncing weight and it takes more to keep it under control.

This kind of training strengthens the small stabilizer muscles, connective tissues, and quick reflexes that traditional fitness often skips. It builds coordination, not just muscle. That’s what makes your body more durable when games get chaotic...and aren’t they always chaotic? Athletic training prepares you for those real-life surprises.

Think outside the gym box.

Most gym moves live in one plane of motion—straight up and down, forward and back. But pickleball constantly asks you to rotate, shuffle sideways, and reach diagonally. Training those patterns pays off directly on the court.

Balance and body awareness are part of it too. Standing on one leg, practicing with a balance board, or doing moves with your eyes closed build proprioception—your body’s sense of where it is in space. That’s what helps you recover when you stumble instead of eating it face-first.

How to start?

Add just one “athletic session” a week. Crawl, carry, twist, and move in ways that don’t feel so rigid. Train outdoors when you can, uneven ground, wind, and temperature changes add free athletic challenges without even trying.

Keep your strength and cardio workouts, of course. They matter. But layering athletic training on top gives you more than fitness, it gives you game-readiness and resilience.

Because in the end, the goal isn’t just to show up fit. It’s to be athletic enough to handle whatever pickleball throws at you, and to keep playing it for years to come.