Pickleball Pains & Gains: Surviving Injuries, Staying Strong, and Playing On

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In this episode of the Pickleball and Partnership podcast, we delve into the physical challenges of playing pickleball, including the injuries we've faced and how we've adapted to maintain our health. We recount our introduction to pickleball, the social benefits of the sport, and the learning curve, particularly with the unique scoring system. We also discuss our personal injuries, the importance of warm-ups, and the comprehensive measures we've taken for injury prevention and recovery, including stretching routines, massage therapies, and listening to our bodies. Join us as we share our journey of overcoming setbacks and enjoying the sport we love.

00:00 Introduction to Pickleball and Physical Challenges

00:26 Starting Our Physical Journey

00:44 Meeting New People Through Pickleball

02:22 Understanding the Game and Initial Struggles

04:26 Injuries and Setbacks

06:30 Recovery and Adaptation

09:25 The Importance of Core Strength

17:21 Preventing Injuries and Supporting Each Other

Key Takeaways from the episode:

1. Starting Pickleball Later in Life is Challenging but Rewarding – As an adult, meeting new people can be difficult, but playing pickleball creates opportunities for social connection and new friendships.
2. Physical Fitness Matters More Than Expected – Despite being relatively strong, playing pickleball revealed unexpected weaknesses, leading to injuries and highlighting the importance of conditioning.
3. Injuries are Common but Preventable – From calf tears to back pain and muscle strains, injuries are a reality, but proper warm-ups, stretching, and strength training can help prevent them.
4. Listen to Your Body and Adapt – Learning from repeated injuries led to a better approach, including strengthening core muscles, following a structured warm-up routine, and prioritizing recovery.
5. Recovery and Self-Care are Essential – Injuries required various treatments, from chiropractic care to massage guns, stretching, and even aromatherapy oils, emphasizing the need for proper recovery.
6. Pickleball Can Be Dangerous Without Proper Technique – Running backward, diving for balls, or playing on slippery courts increases injury risks, making awareness and proper technique crucial.
7. Playing Together Strengthened Our Relationship – Despite setbacks, the shared experience of learning, recovering, and supporting each other deepened our connection.
8.  Prep

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Music: Purple Planet Music
Thanks to Purple Planet Music for Pickleball & Partnership Intro and Outro music Purple Planet Music is a collection of music written and performed by Chris Martyn and Geoff Harvey.

Transcript

 This is the Pickleball and Partnership Podcast. The place to talk about building better connections with your partner, learning how to communicate with each other, and how to inject fun into your relationship. All through the game of Pickleball. If that sounds like your cup of tea, pull up a chair, grab your paddle, and join me, your host, Charlotte Jeeks, for Pickleball and Partnership.

 So in this episode of the Pickleball and Partnership podcast, we thought we would chat about the physical aspect of playing pickleball, physical challenges we encountered, including our injuries, our numerous injuries, and how we adapted to ensure our optimum health, so that we could continue to play and have fun.

After a lot of nagging and pestering to try pickleball, Charlotte found a six lesson beginner course in our local community.  At our Chaparral Tennis Courts in the southeast of Calgary.

 So obviously we didn't know what to expect and we showed up. We actually had a lot of fun. The first few times we met some new people and I actually, I like this was something new for us because at this point, at this stage in our life, It was getting harder to meet new people.

I think, when the children were younger, when we first moved to Canada, actually in 2000, we moved into a community that had a lake. And so we literally had moved to Canada in the May and a couple of weeks later, after we bought our first house here that had a lake in the community, I would take the we just had the two girls at the time, and I would take them down to the lake and play with them on the beach.

And I met so many people. And of course, when your children are young, you do everywhere you go, you take the children to their activities, or even if you're just going for a walk. It's very easy to bump into other adults. And so I would say 100 percent of our, or my friends then at that time  were the children's.

 Parents. And then of course, there were our friends from when we went to work, our work colleagues as well.  So  this was something that we hadn't experienced for a long time in our relationship was meeting new people because we were consistently meeting the same people that we had known for a long time in Canada.

So it was a great place to meet some new people and have fun with new people. So the the madness of the scoring seemed to add to the game as well. We realized pretty quickly after starting pickleball that my body had become pretty weak, although I'm still fairly physically strong, my body hadn't, it didn't know what to do when I asked it to do things that, that were out of the standard regular day.

 So  it was five lessons in and feeling pretty good about life. And I was starting to move a little bit faster and the shots were coming a bit more natural to me. And then we actually started to understand the scoring madness as well, which made it a bit more fun.

Oh, that scoring did not make sense to me. Oh my gosh. I can't tell you the. frustration I had. It is such a strange scoring system when you're new to it. And now it doesn't now it seems like second nature, but at the time I just got so frustrated trying to figure out what the heck. The instructor, Val, what she was talking about.

It just didn't make sense to me at all. It's different. It's very different. It was definitely a barrier for me and it was definitely frustrating, but anyway, finally it clicked. , I suppose we got to the point where we were totally hooked on it. It was at a new sport and I went crazy and bought a couple of pickleball paddles from amazon.

It was the best 23 dollars i'd spent And and it was supposed to look good. It looked good. That's all I can tell you. It looked good I didn't know if it was a bat a racket a paddle or just a whack it We called it a whack it for the first year And the, I suppose the, as soon as we'd got the racket, we were definitely going to push a little bit harder and then the sixth lesson was the last lesson of the course that we'd booked 

, I thought we were going to push it tonight because we'd booked now got bar on. And I slammed the boot. Oh, that's trunk for everyone in North America. Oh, thanks. And then ran onto the court started to warm up and ripped my gastronemius muscle in my calf. Your gastrop.

Gastrop, yeah. Detaching it from my bone. I hobbled back to the car and then I was out for a couple of months. Nice move. Yeah, it was a shame because I remember that day vividly. We'd had five amazing lessons and it was towards the end of August into September. The weather was amazing. It was hot.

It was dry. And then here we are on the sixth lesson and we're running late for the lesson. As it is, but it's cold. It suddenly got so cold that week. And I'm talking about, it's gone from mid twenties. And I think it was like plus 10, it was 10 degrees. It was overcast. It looked like it was about to rain.

It had been raining that day on and off. , we were definitely, we were colder. The day was colder, , we were colder running on. I think as we started the lesson, it actually did begin to rain. Because we were so late, we didn't have time to warm up and Neil was very much then, Oh, we don't need to warm up.

We can just run on and play. And actually it was funny because I remember. Your mind was not even on the game at the time, because it had started raining and the instructor was worried, I think you had left your phone out, and you weren't worried about it, the little bit of rain on it, but she was so concerned that your phone was on the side of the court, and she wanted you to cover it up and put it out of the rain, and, Anyway, your mind was completely somewhere else other than pickleball.

And I think that's when you ran onto the court and stretched in a weird way or lunged at the ball. And that was your gastroc. Yeah. gone in that moment. So yeah, following that you were completely incapacitated. From what I remember, I was walking the dog twice a day. You couldn't even walk the dog.

We got you,  from somewhere you've got one of those knee walkers that you could wheel around on a scooter thing. Oh yeah. The scooter. So at least you could go and walk the dog to the end of the street. And I was trying to follow the rice treatment, the rest. The ice compression and elevate.

So I know I would jump out of bed every morning and go down to the freezer and get you an ice pack so you could put ice on your leg. And it was just, it was crazy, hey, that someone as physically strong as you, because remember we've just done this three and a half year. home renovation, but someone as strong and physically fit as yourself could be so incapacitated.

Yeah. It wasn't the end. No, actually it's funny because I was at the dentist the other day and the dentist was telling me about a lady who had come in and she and her husband had taken up pickleball in their late fifties just recently. And literally they had played a couple of games only. They were a couple of games into playing.

She was running backwards for the ball. Obviously, somebody had lobbed it up high up over her head. She was running backwards, which, we know is a definite no. She fell back, tore her ACL which required surgery, and that's it. No pickleball for months for her. So you've got to be careful.

That's the punishment. Yeah.   So over the next 12 months of Pickleball, I hurt my back four or five times. It was pretty much every time I went out, but in different varied levels. , I wasn't capable of running around and being athletic anymore.

I didn't realize it until I was being pushed and then bending and running at the same time, snatching at balls in the air, overhead balls, anything that was fast, anything that fast and trying to move and make another movement at the same time. I I think I, I ripped my shoulder a couple of times.

I think I pulled my groin maybe even pull my leg, my neck. I had some kind of sciatic nightmare for a few months, along with dozens of small pains from a pulled foot muscle. I have, I even have clicky fingers now. Weird popping noises in my knees after being sat for about 10 minutes and a partridge in a pear tree.

It just went on and on. All mere flesh wounds, obviously. But there was no end to the pain that I could put myself through in a two hour session. I got to be good friends with my chiropractor. How are the kids, birthday's coming up, that kind of thing. I thought core muscles, this is the truth.

I thought core muscles. With things that other people had, it was like, or perhaps muscles that I flexed trying to look cool up and open a pickle jar, that kind of stuff. I didn't realize there was another set of muscles behind the stomach muscles. , who knew, I had no clue. Anyone who does yoga, but I guess you hadn't been introduced to yoga at that point or weights.

Hadn't our gym crazy son been telling you for weeks to strengthen your core muscles? He doesn't know anything. I think he had said it so many times. And became more and more frustrated with you saying, dad, you need to strengthen your core muscles and then giving you a list of exercises that would maybe help.

I remember I even recorded him on a voice memo one day explaining what exercises you should be doing outside of pickleball, just so that I could play it back to you when you asked the question what exercises should I do? But. Seems like we should be listening to our children a bit more, maybe.

Yeah. I think I did in the end. Yeah. My nickname  for the chiropractor was the crack shack. Every time I hear the term dry needling, I actually go into cold sweats right now, it's the worst feeling in the world. , that's interesting because I've actually never had dry needling.  Tell us about your dry needling experience.

I'm actually sweating thinking about this right now. Oh really?  Ryan, if you listen to this, Yeah. We're friends off  I think it's called , the fine Chinese Art of torture developed by chiropractors, , to release muscles in spasm and in protection mode after being damaged it, it should say after pickleball.

Yeah. But it works, but it hurts. Oh, I like that. It works, but it hurts. The chiropractor, Ryan gave me a multitude of exercises and stretches some calisthenics stuff to get working on. And I almost don't hurt myself now. I'm saying almost, cause it's, I still hurt myself. Touch wood. Yeah.

It's about two years. We've been doing this about two years now. It's got to get to a point where I can start being a player instead of a survivor or a spectator. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, you actually, that's true. Now you say that  , we've driven together to Pickleball Sessions and you've sat and watched me.

Oh, that's partnership. Hey, that's love. Support. Yeah. I love that. But I had forgotten that you totally did because there were so many games where you couldn't play. Yeah. Yeah. That was tough. For all you guys out there, after finding a stretching and strengthening routine a couple of times a week for about 20 minutes, that's all I need.

, but they just happen to be the right exercises. I'm able to hold myself together long enough to play consistently and develop some skills. But it was long and it was uphill two years. I didn't realize how far I was from being athletic. Yeah I haven't myself had any major injuries, thank goodness.

But pulled muscles. Oh my gosh. Cause you, you're using muscles that you haven't used before. And even if you play tennis, you're still using slightly different muscles. And I know for the longest time and still now it's my hamstrings that, that bother me the most. And I know it's, If I haven't stretched enough if I haven't stretched and warmed up beforehand, or if I haven't stretched after, a two, three hour session,  that's when I'm going to struggle to get out of bed the next morning.

But lots of, Lots of sore muscles, sore feet, sore knees. When we play on concrete courts, I definitely feel it the next day or even later that night, to be brutally honest, getting on and off the toilet, as crazy as that sounds, sitting down and pushing yourself back up. If I've played on a concrete court, my knees suffer.

And there's nothing wrong with my knees that I know of, but yeah, it's just a little bit more, a little bit more. Yeah. Putting those muscles that we don't use or we haven't used for a long time under so much pressure. So on the good side of all this pain and suffering is there's a good side. Oh yeah.

There's always the back rubs, the massages with a massage gun. Like aromatherapy oils, hot showers with shower bombs, warm baths, Epsom salts, bath salts, that kind of thing. Lots of stretching together, yoga moves, the basement carpet's always got our handprints on it, that's just how we do it now. Yeah.

Did you ever think you would be talking in a podcast about aromatherapy oils? No. But honestly, we just delete. But we do anything because honestly, the pain was so bad sometimes. We were doing everything we could. And I was very grateful when you bought that massage gun. That was a good addition because that really gets into that deep tissue, isn't it?

So a guy I was playing with the other day actually was telling me I've never, I've played with him, but I've never played with his wife. But he said she dived to reach a ball that had been hit way out to the side of the court a couple of weeks ago, and she slammed into the wall so hard that she actually fractured her humerus.

Wow. Yeah. Which was not funny, but yeah, there's, there obviously you did that. Yeah.  You can sustain quite severe injuries, especially, as we get older, and I was actually, I was looking it up because I was interested  in  how many people at what age are playing pickleball?

And it's actually 50% of the current pickleball players are. older than 55 years old. And then also the other thing I was interested in was, and of course the stats came out of the U. S., but I'm sure it's not that much different from Canada or anywhere else really, but They looked at the number of  emergency department visits from 2010 through to 2019.

And there's actually been a 21. 5 percent increase in ER visits for specifically pickleball related injuries.  That's got to be the other side of the coin from everybody being a little bit lighter and a little bit easier on the health system just because we're all running around and keeping ourself healthy.

So there is a negative. Yeah, absolutely. . So I think, the couple of physios and chiros that chiropractors that I've talked to say that they're treating these, what they call it, the slip trip fallen dive injuries. People slipping on the floor, there's actually, there's one facility we play at that has the slippiest floor and we have to take a wet cloth and go and wipe our shoes down.

So just being careful of the surface, the floor that you're playing on. So yes, those are the slips. And then the trips, I've tripped over my own feet. I can't tell you how many times. It was and then the falls, lunging for a ball or when you're running backwards, which you shouldn't ever do, if you're going for a lob, they teach you to run around behind the ball and dive injuries.

I don't know if I've ever dived for, I think you have, I'm pretty sure you've dived for a ball. Possibly. Yeah, possibly. Okay.  So we were just thinking about. what we've done to to make sure that we're successful and thinking about injury prevention.  What we've done as a couple, how we help support each other and and make sure that each other .

 is in good health. I always shiver you along a little bit and make sure you get there on time. I'll try and rush you out the house. Thank you. That's very helpful. Yes, it's very good to get there on time. But when I say on time, it's that 15, 20 minutes beforehand, right? So that we're not rushing at the last minute.

Don't be a boot slammer. Don't be a trunk slammer,  we always make sure now we have time to warm up and just reminding each other of that. Because I think sometimes we get to a session, we get excited we're meeting up with people we know, we're chatting, we're catching up. And it's just making sure that each other has that space and that time to properly warm up.

And. What that looks like for us now is stretching before you even take your paddle out of your bag. Stretching. And a good friend of mine actually says that before she even leaves the house, she now runs around the house with the vacuum. What? Yeah, no kidding. I've done that myself. It's a really good warm up.

It's a brilliant female activity. Oh, I can't believe you just said that. The kitchen game is really good warm up, isn't it? You know that just dinking in the kitchen as a warm up, two people either side of the net and just playing the kitchen game in the kitchen, keep it in the kitchen.

And then just being aware,  Making sure that if one of you gets a, some kind of pain or then talk it through you don't have to play every game. That's just looking after each other, really just saying, Oh yeah, you know what? Sit this one out and just look after yourself for a few minutes.

Give it a rub. If you come back into the game, , next game, they're only about 12 minutes long. 12 minutes is nothing for a cool down. Yeah, just don't get too crazy. I think that's been hard.  I'm okay saying, Oh, I need to sit this one out, but I think you find that hard sometimes.

I feel a little bit cheated of time if I'm off. Yeah. When you've got a two hour session, you want to play every game, but I think it's just being aware of, Oh, there's a twinge or something pinged or, my back's not feeling. Quite as it should it's okay to take a break and then even on the court  is not feeling like you have to go for every flippin ball.

Obviously if they're going to go out behind you, let them go out behind you. But also, if you're having to lunge across to the side of the court, and you're finding yourself heading towards the wall, don't do it. Just make the dive. Make the dive. Don't make the dive. Don't make the dive. But definitely being there for each other, supporting each other, and just checking in has been really helpful.

Yeah, it has. It has. For us too. Yeah.

Here are the takeaways from today's episode. Starting pickleball later in life is challenging, but rewarding. As an adult, meeting new people can be difficult, but playing pickleball creates opportunities for social connection and new friendships. 2. , physical fitness matters more than expected. Despite being relatively strong, playing pickleball revealed unexpected weaknesses, leading to injuries and highlighting the importance of conditioning.

Three, injuries are common but preventable. From calf tears to back pain and muscle strains, injuries are a reality, but proper warm ups, stretching, and strength training can help prevent them. 4. Listen to your body and adapt. Learning from repeated injuries led to a better approach, including strengthening core muscles, followed by a structured warm up routine and prioritizing recovery.

5. Recovery and self care are essential. Injuries required various treatments, from chiropractic care to massage guns, stretching and even aromatherapy oils, emphasizing the need for recovery. The proper recovery. Six. Pickleball can be dangerous without proper technique. Running backwards, diving for balls, or playing on slippery courts increases injury risks, making awareness and proper technique crucial.

Playing together strengthened our relationship. Despite setbacks, the shared experience of learning, recovering and supporting each other deepened our connection.     Preparation is key. Arriving early for warm ups, wearing the right shoes and taking care of the playing surface, like wiping slippery floors, all contribute to a safer, more enjoyable game.



 Thanks so much for. Listening today. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much. As I did. Anything mentioned, including links. Uh, notes and a full episode list will be over on our website. At synergy health.org forward slash podcast. In the podcast section. If you got something. Out of this episode, be sure to follow or subscribe. To pickleball and partnership. On apple podcasts. It's. Spotify or wherever you listen, so that you're notified. of new and upcoming episodes. And if you're fine. Finding value in this podcast, a cost-free way to. To support us is to leave a five star review. 

It truly. He means the world to us. This will help more people access. Access these real conversations. If you really got. Something out of it. Take a screenshot of this episode on your phone. And share it on social media tag me at. At Charlotte Jukes and I will absolutely reshare your post. If you haven't connected with me personally, I would love. To meet you and say, hi. Thanks  📍 again for listening. I remember, we're all learning, growing and showing. Up in our own ways. 

And that's what matters most.