I’ve played pickleball with friends, and one of the things I loved about it was that it didn’t really feel like a workout. We were laughing, chasing balls, and trying to save shots we probably should have let go. It was fun, which puts it squarely in my favorite category of exercise: joyful movement.
Any movement is good movement, but I started wondering whether pickleball really was a good workout. Compared with lifting weights, walking, cycling, or doing something that feels a little more traditionally “fitness-y,” does batting a plastic ball around with your friends and laughing so hard your cheeks hurt really count? So I started looking into it, and somewhere along the way I discovered something I had never heard of before: a whole category of movement called “open-skill exercise.” Suddenly, pickleball got a lot more interesting.
What the Heck Is an Open-Skill Activity?
Open-skill activities take place in an environment that keeps changing, which means you have to continually respond to what is happening around you. You don’t know exactly where the ball is going, what another player is going to do, where your dance partner is going to move, or what the next wave is going to throw at you. Your body can’t simply memorize the motion and check out.
Pickleball, tennis, badminton, racquetball, squash, table tennis, soccer, basketball, volleyball, hockey, martial arts, surfing, and many forms of partner or improvisational dance all fit. Think about what those activities have in common: something outside of you keeps changing, and you have to notice it, decide what to do about it, and move accordingly. Sometimes you have about half a second to put that whole plan together, which apparently is enough time for the brain even if it doesn’t always feel that way to the rest of us.
Then there are activities that live a little farther out on that spectrum but still ask the body to continually adapt. Paddleboarding is a good example. You may not be returning a serve, but the water underneath you is moving, the wind changes, a boat sends a wake your way, and your body is constantly making tiny adjustments to keep you upright. Mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding, and moving over unpredictable terrain can create some of the same demand because the environment keeps changing and your body has to change with it. That is very different from many of the movements we traditionally think of as exercise.
We Talk About Everything Except Reacting
We talk about strength. We talk about cardio, flexibility, mobility, and balance. All of those things matter, and I’m not giving up my weights, walks, bike rides, or other forms of movement anytime soon. But maybe we should also be talking more about movement that makes us react.
When was the last time you did a workout that made you react? Not just move. React. Adjust. Pivot. Catch your balance. Read what was happening around you and change what your body was doing in response. That’s a very different demand than simply repeating a movement your body already knows is coming.
A lot of exercise is intentionally predictable. You know where the treadmill belt is going, you know what the dumbbell is going to do, and if you’re riding a stationary bike, you can be fairly confident nothing is going to dart three feet to the left. Take that bike outside, though, and everything changes. Now you’re responding to turns, terrain, potholes, pedestrians, other cyclists, and yes, the occasional car making a left in front of you. The movement may be similar, but the environment changes what your brain and body are being asked to do.
And life isn’t always predictable either. We step off curbs awkwardly, turn too quickly, stumble, or encounter someone walking directly in front of us at Costco because apparently peripheral vision has become optional. A dog pulls unexpectedly on a leash, we reach for something at an odd angle, the ground changes underneath us, or we have to recover our balance before we have time to carefully plan the movement. That’s where the ability to react starts looking less like a sports skill and more like a life skill.
Your Brain Has to Come Along for the Ride
Open-skill movement also asks something different from the brain. During a pickleball game, you aren’t just swinging a paddle. You’re watching the ball, figuring out where it is headed, deciding where you need to move, positioning your body, choosing a shot, and trying to execute the whole thing before that ball bounces somewhere inconvenient.
Soccer does the same thing with your feet and an entire field of moving people. Dancing asks you to coordinate rhythm, movement, timing, and often another human being. Surfing requires you to read water that has absolutely no intention of repeating the same wave twice. In all of these activities, your brain and body are working together in real time.
I think that matters because we often separate physical fitness and brain health as though everything above and below the neck has its own wellness plan. But movement and the brain were never separate in the first place. When the environment changes and you have to respond, your brain is paying attention, processing information, making decisions, and adjusting the body accordingly. You also have to be present, because it’s a little harder to mentally wander through tomorrow’s to-do list when a pickleball is heading toward your face.
Your Body Shouldn’t Always Know What’s Coming Next
There’s something else I like about this kind of movement: unpredictability makes the body solve problems. How far do I need to reach? Which foot needs to move? How do I shift my weight, and can I recover from this position without falling over? Those little adjustments happen quickly, and many of them happen without us consciously thinking through every step.
Balance, coordination, agility, reaction time, and spatial awareness all get called into the game. That doesn’t mean predictable exercise is somehow inferior. Quite the opposite. Strength training gives us something enormously important that pickleball cannot completely replace, and walking, cycling, swimming, and other rhythmic activities have benefits of their own.
I want all of it in some form because different kinds of movement ask different things of the body. But maybe a well-rounded movement life includes a little unpredictability too. Your body shouldn’t always know exactly what’s coming next.
And Then There’s the Fun Part
This is where we come back to pickleball, because you’re playing. That word matters more than we give it credit for. Many open-skill activities happen to be games, sports, dances, or outdoor activities people do because they genuinely enjoy doing them. The workout is happening, but it isn’t necessarily the entire reason you showed up.
You’re trying to return the ball, catch the wave, follow your dance partner, make the shot, or stay on the paddleboard when somebody’s speedboat sends its regards. Your attention is on what you’re doing rather than how many minutes of exercise remain. That’s joyful movement, and I think we underestimate how valuable it is to find something that makes us want to keep moving.
I’ve always believed that movement shouldn’t exist simply to burn calories or make up for something we ate. We need strength and challenge, and there are days when I lift weights because I know what maintaining muscle means for my future, not because the dumbbells are particularly entertaining. But there is room in a healthy life for movement that makes us laugh, play, connect, and want to come back tomorrow.
Many open-skill activities also bring other people into the equation. Pickleball, tennis, basketball, volleyball, soccer, dance, and martial arts can give us movement and social connection at the same time. You’re exercising, but you’re also talking, laughing, competing, learning, and being part of something with other people. That’s a pretty impressive amount of health happening without anyone calling it a wellness protocol.
Maybe Your Movement Needs a Wild Card
I’m not suggesting you trade your walking shoes for a pickleball paddle or abandon your strength training for salsa lessons. I’m suggesting something much simpler: take a look at the movement you already do and notice what it asks of you. Maybe you’re getting plenty of strength and cardio but very little reaction, or maybe most of your exercise happens in predictable patterns where your body rarely has to move sideways, respond quickly, coordinate with another person, adjust to an unexpected change, or figure something out on the fly.
If that sounds familiar, maybe your movement life could use a wild card. Try pickleball, dance, tennis, soccer, paddleboarding, martial arts, surfing, or something else that forces your body to respond instead of simply repeat. The point isn’t to find the “best” one; it’s to occasionally give your body a different problem to solve and see how it responds.
That idea fits beautifully with what I write about in The Awakened Body. I have an entire chapter on joyful movement, yet I never once used the term “open-skill activity” because, at the time, I didn’t even know it existed. That’s one of the things I love about learning more about the body: our understanding keeps evolving. Joyful movement was already important to me because it changes our relationship with exercise, but now I see another layer to it. Some of the movement we enjoy most may also be asking us to react, adapt, coordinate, think, and stay present in ways I hadn’t fully considered before.
So the next time you think about your fitness routine, add one more question to strength, cardio, flexibility, and balance: when was the last time you did something that made you react? Maybe your body could use a little less predictability, a little more problem-solving, and perhaps even a little more play.