If you're looking to improve your pickleball game, Montreal Gazette fitness columnist Jill Barker points you in the right direction with a Feb. 9 story that provides a potential roadmap to success with a focus on sport-specific training.

"Sport-specific training is a science based on the unique physiological requirements of the activity," writes Barker. "When it comes to pickleball, however, research has lagged behind public interest, leaving a gap in the knowledge about the competitive demands of the sport. Most of the existing studies have focused on adults in their 60s playing at the recreational level."

Don't worry, though, because Barker did some digging and found something special.

A study was published in the International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport that analyzed match activity during men's doubles matches on the PPA Tour.

Researchers examined match footage of 19 different players (with an average age of 27.9 years old) during eight matches (best of five games) over a span of 6,839 shots to reveal intricacies of pickleball at the highest level.

"A deeper understanding of pickleball's competitive demands could help players and coaches optimize training sessions, enhancing performance, while also benefiting pickleball clubs and organizations in structuring their programs," explained the study.

Here are some key findings:

- Average match duration was 36.4 minutes, with most rallies lasting 10.7 seconds
- The rest between rallies was about 40 percent longer than it took to win the point
- Players on both sides of the net accumulated a total of 854.9 shots per game
- In most cases, a point lasted less than 15 seconds, with the majority of exchanges between players consisting of five to six shots
- The left side player hit the highest number of shots per game
- Points lasting between six and nine seconds occurred 28.4 percent of the time, and those lasting three to six seconds made up 27 percent of all rallies
- Points lasting longer than 21 seconds occurred only 11.5 percent of the time
- Most of the rest intervals were between nine and 12 seconds
- The forehand was the most common shot, followed by the backhand volley
- Cross court shots outnumbered (54 percent) those hit to the same side player (46 percent)
- Shots taken from the transition zone accounted for 60.7 percent of the shots compared with the non-volley zone, which accounted for only 3.7 percent of the shots during a match

Putting valuable information like that into practice when it comes to preparation can make a world of difference.

"Players can not only fine-tune their on-court drills, but also better manage time spent in the gym. Improving conditioning and on-court training to better reflect the work-to-rest ratio of an average game, intensity of play, number of shots per point, length of an average rally and game duration, ensures training will better match the specific demands of the sport," writes Barker. "And while there's a difference in the game played by young male professionals and the average pickleball enthusiast, the more you know about the game, the better you can perform on the court, especially if you want to explore more competitive play."