Pickleball Injuries - And How To Avoid Them.

Sep 21

Pickleball has taken the world by storm in recent years! I recently became interested in pickleball after my mom and dad kicked my butt and left me thinking “I’m too young to get beat by my own parents”. So my wife and I bought some paddles, learned the scoring system, and quickly realized what all the hype is about. In my clinic, I get people coming in every week with injuries sustained during pickleball. Today I want go over the most common pickleball injuries that I see in my clinic, and what you can do to help prevent these injuries from happening to you.

1) Lateral and medial epicondylitis

The first injury/condition that I see most often in my clinic is tennis elbow. You may know it as lateral epicondylitis, but i like to call it (what might be a more apropriate term in this case) pickleball elbow. Pickleball elbow is a pain and irritation of the tendons on the outside of your elbow and the top of your forearm. Medial epicondylitis is the same condition but on the tendon on the inner part of your elbow (near your funny bone), and this is commonly called golfers elbow. Both of these conditions are found in pickleball, and they have a similar cause and treatment. What is a tendon? A tendon is a soft tissue that connects muscle to bone, and is constantly getting pulled on by muscles when they are being used. In the case of pickleball, the swing is very repetitive, and this repetitive stress can lead to micro tears in these tendons.

So what is the cause: overuse and repetitive motion.

How can you avoid pickleball elbow, and how can you get rid of it if you currently have it? The 3

Regarding swing mechanics; this can be from relying to much on your arm strength during your swing, instead of using your entire body to swing the paddle.

Some studies show that newer players are more prone to pickleball elbow (due to their

( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0894113024001807 ) This study found that 15% of pickleball players have some form of elbow tendinopathy (wether it be medial or lateral epicondylitis) and that newer players were more prone to it.