How to Prevent Injuries, Sprains, and Muscle Strains in Pickleball and Tennis

Pickleball is IN! It’s the hottest thing to do.

Tennis players don’t want to hear that, I know. Tennis has always been the “in” thing to do. 

The truth is the sports are almost identical in how you have to move and where you need to be physically strong. 

Strong shoulders and elbows. Strong ankles and knees. Powerful through the core and the endurance to keep up with the person (or people) on the other side of the net. 

You also certainly know someone who has recently taken up these sports, or even played them most of their lives, and come away with an injury that keeps them off the court. 

Lowering the risk of injury in a paddle sport is certainly doable: you just need a plan. Let’s make one for YOU! 

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Common Injuries in Pickleball and Tennis

Let’s start with the injuries we’re seeing most often on the court. In pickleball, it’s often the knee or the ankle. Tennis sees those injuries, and adds shoulder, elbow, and back to the equation. Today, you’ll learn how to lower your risk of these injuries. 

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Muscle strains and joint (ankle, knee) sprains are far too common on the amateur paddle sport scene. 

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Overuse injuries, such as tennis elbow, shoulder impingement, or tendonitis can be prevented before they occur. 

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And devastating injuries, such as Achilles or meniscus tears, which often happen because of muscle imbalances and tightness, can have their risk lowered, too. 

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Are all injuries preventable? Certainly not. But can we bring the risk down with a proper training plan? Absolutely. 

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Pre-Game Injury Prevention & Warm-Up

We all “warm up” before we do physical activity, right? Maybe a little side-to-side stretch. Fling our arms around. Stretch the quads. 

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The truth is, that isn’t a warmup. It’s more of a static stretch, but even then, we usually aren’t holding it long enough to help. It certainly doesn’t help with our athleticism or keeping us injury free.

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A pre-game warm-up should be active and dynamic. It should get our heart rate up a bit, blood flowing to our muscles (activation), and our nervous system ready to go. If you aren’t taking at least 7-10 minutes to warm-up before a tennis or pickleball match, you’re doing yourself a disservice, both in the ability and injury prevention department. 

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Dynamic warm-ups are usually individualized for adults, but they should typically include some of the following: 

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• Jumping jacks
• Skips
• Shuffles
• Lunges
• Hip Bridges 
• Leg swings 
• Shoulder circles
• Wrist mobility 

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I would recommend at least 10 reps of each exercise, but if your joints and muscles feel loose and your heart rate is up, you’ve done your job! 

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Strength and Stability Training

A strong, mobile athlete is typically one with a lower risk of injury. That’s true whether you’re in high school or just starting to pick up a paddle sport again in retirement. 

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You should start to do compound, multi-joint strength training movements to keep your lower body, core, and shoulders strong. These include exercises like squats, lunges, planks, shoulder press, and rows, among many other movements. But it doesn’t have to be complicated: you can usually pick 8-12 exercises, based on your current strengths and weaknesses and make progress in those over time. 

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Improving your balance and joint mobility will also go a long way toward building and maintaining your athletic ability and lowering your injury risk. 

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Agility Training

The most overlooked part of training for tennis or pickleball is actually learning how to move again. Sure, you played sports in your teens, but everything about how you move has changed since then. Don’t just start moving fast in all directions without a clue on how to do it. 

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Agility training for adults in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond looks a lot like agility training for an elementary school child. You have to learn the basics first: a proper base of support, a low center of gravity, good posture, and proper weight distribution. 

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More than anything, believe it or not, you have to learn how to STOP properly. This is called deceleration, and when you don’t know how to do it, or you aren’t strong enough, you damage the knee or ankle joint, or strain a muscle. 

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Once you practice those over and over with some basic drills (Videos below!), you can learn how to move quicker and add some reaction into your training. Reacting quickly, at the end of the day, is really what’s going to help improve your game the most. Reacting quickly, with proper technique, is what will keep you safe. 

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Post-Game Recovery

Stretch! Fundamentally, we aren’t much different now than when we were kids. We know what we’re supposed to do, we just don’t often have the discipline to do it. Especially when it comes to stretching after a match! 

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Stretching takes 5 minutes and can help reduce your soreness the next couple of days after you play. 

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Here’s a quick stretch routine you should do AFTER every match: 

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Final Thoughts

If you’ve read until this point, you certainly play, or plan to start playing, pickleball or tennis. You’re also probably not in your 20s anymore.

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You love the game and the social aspect of the sport. Don’t lose that because you failed to prepare your body to play. Getting hurt is almost always a poor excuse to stop playing: 90% of serious injuries are preventable if you just follow a plan. 

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If you think a complimentary session with us could help you learn how to reduce your risk of injury on the tennis or pickleball court, send us a message and learn more about preparing your body with training!

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