Dr. Colin Campbell- Pickleball Injury Prevention

What if the person who could extend your pickleball life…doesn’t even play the game?

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Colin Campbell, a chiropractor from the Nepean Active Health Clinic who sees the game from the outside looking in — and what he shares might completely change how you approach the court.

From walking onto a varsity football team at Queen's University football team with zero experience…
to treating athletes for over 20 years…to breaking down the real reason pickleball injuries are exploding…

This conversation is different.
It’s not about how to play better.
It’s about how to keep playing at all.

🧠 WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

• Why pickleball injuries are rising fast (and what nobody tells you)
• The biggest mistake players make before stepping on the court
• The truth about aging vs performance
• Why your brain thinks you’re 35… but your body disagrees
• The most common injuries: knees, Achilles, back, elbow
• Simple changes that can add YEARS to your game

⚠️ REAL TALK:

Most players don’t get injured because of one bad movement.
They get injured because of thousands of small ones done wrong.

This episode breaks that down in a way every player needs to hear.

🔗 CONNECT WITH NEPEAN ACTIVE HEALTH CLINIC

👉 https://nepeanahc.com/

If you’re in the Ottawa area and serious about staying in the game, this is where you start.

🎯 ABOUT THE SHOW

“More than Dinks, Drops and Drives – Stories from Behind The Paddle.”

This is not a coaching channel.
This is where the real stories live.

💬 QUESTION FOR YOU:

Have you ever played through an injury you knew you shouldn’t have?

🔔 DON’T FORGET:

Subscribe for weekly episodes. Every Thursday. 1pm.

🏷️ HASHTAGS:

#Pickleball #PickleballInjuries #KitchenConversations #SportsHealth #InjuryPrevention #ActiveLiving #PickleballLife #Longevity #HealthAndWellness #ChiropracticCare #OttawaHealth #StayInTheGame #PickleballCanada #AthleteMindset #MovementMatters

And that wraps up this episode of Kitchen Conversations.

If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who loves the game as much as you do.

And if you want the full experience, including the visuals, head over to YouTube and watch the episode at

https://www.youtube.com/@KitchenConversationspodcast

Or search Kitchen Conversations Pickleball Podcast

That’s where these stories really come to life.

You’ll also find links and show notes in the episode description.

Until next time…

more than dinks, drops and drives…

these are stories from behind the paddle.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Welcome to Kitchen Conversations and thanks for stopping by. Today's guest is unique in a number of ways. First, he's never played pickleball. Why is he on the podcast? Well, you'll find out in just a moment. He was also one of the very few people to walk on to the Queen's Varsity football team having never played football. He'll share that story and some tips on warming up, cooling down, injury prevention, and injury recovery in today's episode of Kitchen Conversations. Well, Colin, welcome to my podcast and welcome to Kitchen Conversations. I can't uh can't tell you how thrilled I am that you found some time to sit down and talk to me about this game of pickleball, this crazy, wonderful game of pickleball. So welcome to the podcast and thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

I'm excited to do it and thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yeah, you bet. Well, this is interesting for us because you're the first guest to come on the podcast who actually does not play pickleball. And I love that. I I am so happy that you're here today because I think you're going to give us a sense of the game through a slightly different lens. As players, we're focused on the game, we're focused on getting better. Uh, we don't warm up enough. We're going to talk with you about the importance of that and how that kind of translates into your business. So I'm excited about all of that today and can't wait to get into it with you. I'd like to break today's conversation down, Colin, if I can, into three separate buckets. Um, and I call them rallies uh to stay in the spirit of the game. So in rally one, I'd really like to invite you to tell us a bit about your background or education, your sports background, kind of what have you done leading up to where you are today. And then we'll get into rally two, which is, you know, kind of talking a little bit about um what uh you're seeing in the game from an injury perspective and how that's kind of playing into your day, week, month, year. And then the third rally is maybe some advice and guidance from you on things that we should be doing as players to avoid seeing you as often as we have to. So if that makes sense, you know, I would invite you to start today's conversation by, you know, maybe giving me a sense of your sports background, your education background, and and I guess uh, you know, what officially is it that you do for a living? So why don't we start with that?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Okay. Um, yeah, I mean, I grew up, you know, like a lot of people, big uh big sports family, stuff, stuff like that, uh, playing hockey in Ottawa. And uh they wanted to play some junior hockey here in uh Indipean, a little suburb of Ottawa. And it's funny because I actually drive by my home rank every day, going to and from work. So I never I never thought of that 30 years ago, but here we are, right? And then uh, you know, when hockey was done after high school, I actually, you know, for whatever reason, I just wanted to try something different. And uh uh went off to Queen's University in Kingston. And just and just by and I just I was kind of not done with sports, I just wanted to shift something else. I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue playing hockey. And uh just happened to be my next door neighbor in residence, uh, who's still a good friend of mine to this day and is actually a chiropractor as well, um, uh was a starter on the Queen's football team as a freshman, which doesn't happen very often. No. And to this day, he's their their all-time leading sack leader. He's in the Hall of Fame, the whole nine yards. And he just comes up to me one day and we're just chatting because we had, like I said, we were next door to each other in res. And he says, uh, Colin, why don't you come play football? I'm like, Yeah, why don't I go play waterfall too? Like I'm a big football fan, love it, watch the NFL, CFL, big fan. Never played. And he said, Oh, come on. And uh and out of the blue, like a few days later, the head coach of the Queens football team gives me a call and says, Oh, Jim was telling me about you. Why don't you come out and play? And this guy, Bob House, legendary coach at uh at Queens, unfortunately just passed away uh a few weeks ago. We're having a big celebration of life for him down in Kingston at Richardson Stadium there in June. Wonderful man. And uh he actually played in the uh in the 70s with the Eskimos, winning all the Great Cups with Warren Moon and all this stuff. Wow, just a legend in Queens football. Anyway, so I go out and uh you know played four years of Queen's football, was was mostly just a special teams guy, but made you know some great relationships and and and lifetime friendships there, and very grateful for that time. So that's I what I like about that story is I always try and tell my kids like don't be scared to try something new uh just because you're in experience with it. Like you gotta start somewhere. And uh and like I said, we see that with pickleball. Like some of the people that I've seen who go weren't big athletes in their youth. And uh, you know, some of them are moving from a new sport, a lot of them are, obviously. Some of them racket sports, some of them not. But another great thing about bringing a queens in in the in the phys ed program back then, it's changed now, unfortunately, but uh we actually played a lot of sports uh just to learn about them on top of our regular like lecture room education. So I did all kinds of sports, like not only just the traditional ones like football or basketball or soccer. I mean, Mike, we did uh uh we did um uh fencing.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Uh no kidding. Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

We did feed hockey. Not that I see a lot of fencers in my clinic, but but familiar with a lot. I mean, we did racquetball, we did squash, uh, you know, we did swimming units, we did outdoor education in the winter and in the summer, uh, canoe trips, all kinds of things. So even if they weren't my forte or things that I do all the time, it gave me a touch of every kind of sport that's out there, which is, you know, didn't realize it at the time, but how much of a massive benefit that's been to my clinical practice in terms of being able to relate to the mechanics of you know the sports that people uh participate in. And then uh, like I said, very interested in the sports injury stuff, having been uh, you know, playing sports my whole life and and seeing different uh practitioners, medical doctors, um, surgeons, uh, you know, uh sports physicians, uh physiochiropractors, the whole gamut of it. And just chiropractic, for whatever reason, just kind of fit my mind better in terms of I like the autonomy of it. I like the idea of just running my own practice on my own and kind of doing things on my schedule the way I like to do them. I found that very appealing. And uh, you know, I heard nothing but good things about the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in Toronto and uh, you know, went there for four years, tremendous education, a lot of excellent, elects, excellent clinicians, um uh and just learned a ton, a lot of great people there, a lot of smart people, and obviously a lot of a lot of athletes, very fit people there as well. And so you really got uh to understand what it was like to uh you know take care of your body in a lot of different ways. And you know, like I always, you know, kind of preach to my patients, like, take care of it, it'll take care of you. And that's basically kind of how my practice has been run for the last 23 years now. And uh yeah, ended up back in Ottawa, like five minutes from where I grew up. That was never really the planning, but you know, you come home again, so to speak, right? So yeah, loving every moment of it. And um, you know, go into work with a smile on my face, come home with a smile on my face every day. You'll never hear my wife or kids say Colin complains about work because it's certainly never every I love every day there. And I hope to be doing it for another 23 years if I can.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah, well, you know, Colin, the passion just shines through in your voice, you know, I can see it in your face. I can almost from here see it through your eyes. But it's and I'd love that. You know, for for my wife and I, we've got two boys, uh, one's uh 28, one's 25, Colin. We've always driven passion before paycheck into their life. And I've mentioned this in previous podcasts. You know, we've always said to the boys, find some passion and the paycheck will follow. And so when I talk to someone like you, it's inspiring. It's really inspiring to hear the love that you have for the work that you're doing. And I think in your case, the help that you're able to, I mean, you're you're very clearly able to see that patient from the moment they arrive through the treatment process to where they're coming back saying, I can't believe how great I feel. You know, and that's that's got to be incredibly rewarding for you.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

It's such a wonderful feeling. Like I can't tell you how much I love that feeling. And and and you know, the alternative side is unfortunately sometimes people have injuries that are that are too far gone. And you can't help them. You do your best you can or you send them where they need to go. And that uh and that's still that still breaks my heart every time that happens. But like I say, when I stop feeling that, that's time for me to hang them up. Like that's that's a that's uh you know, patients deserve the best of you. And if that means that, you know, you're uh you have to live with the disappointment of not being able to help, then that's a good sign that uh your mind is still where it should be.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

So right, yeah, you still care. Yeah, interesting. That's that's a great intro. Thank you for starting us off with all of that. To take take me back to Queens for just a minute because it strikes me too. Well, it just yeah, because I'm of course we're recording this podcast in the city of Kingston, home to the gales, go gales, go gales, yeah. Love our gales, love our gales. Uh that's not normal, is it, for someone to show up at university with a hockey background and basically walk onto a football team at a varsity level? Like maybe I'm mistaking this, but it that seems like there's quite a story there, Colin.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

It's not. And so honestly, like Bob Howes, like our coach that I mentioned, he had actually come to Queens in the 60s as a basketball player. Okay, and so he had this thing where he was willing to give athletes a shot. And uh, I just like I said, right place, right time. Uh, I always tease my friends in terms of uh, I'm still the best hockey player in the history of Queens football, is what I tell. That's great, and it's true. And I tease them too because I said, let's be honest, you guys started off in hockey, you weren't very good, but your parents are trying to do something else.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Yeah, it's still what you still wear a helmet, but we're not gonna worry about the skate. So you just go and run. Can you go and run into that guy? If you can do that, you can do yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Oh wow, yeah. What a great, what a great group of guys. But you're right, it's not a common, common story, and I'm forever grateful uh for those guys. And and and still, like I have some really close friends uh from that era that I still see and talk to regularly, and and and and so grateful that I uh you know had the courage to go out and just risk embarrassing myself and going out there. Yeah. And uh there's always a great line that uh that Bob has said to me one time that I always retell is that you know, I was pretty fast. I was a fast runner, and uh comes off the field early in my career with his arm around me. And he used to call me Canby. And he said, Cambi, God loves you. He says, You're so fast. He's like, Sometimes I wish you were a little slower though, sometimes because you're usually going the wrong direction.

unknown 10:19

Oops.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Yeah, if we could just slow you down, get you turned around and heading the other way, we'd be great.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

You wouldn't be out of position so far if you weren't so fast. So yeah, but he was a wonderful you're right, not a common thing, and I'm very proud to talk about that. Like it's uh it's one of the you know, the greatest uh endeavors of my life is being around those guys for all those years and uh yeah, wouldn't trade it for the world.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Yeah, interesting. And uh you made a point as well in your opening dialogue, which I appreciate about you know, pickleball is is an interesting sport in the sense that you really don't need to have you know much of a sports background to get into this game. The entry uh barrier to entry is low. Within literally an hour, you can be at a level where you're playing well enough to enjoy it. And I can't think of a lot of sports where within one hour, you know, 60 minutes, you're kind of getting it. And I think, you know, we'll talk a bit about the magic of the game, which leads to the injuries in the game, which you're going to help us with today. But to me, that's part of it, Colin, is just that very quick entry. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Like you said before, the uh, you know, the the being able to enter it and the socialization aspect of it, I think is phenomenally important, especially going forward um in the coming years to have people more and more involved in this sport, I think is nothing but positives.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah, well, that's great. Well, listen, great, great stuff. So give me a sense of what you're doing today. You're very passionate about your work and and your clinic. Tell me, give me a sort of a brief overview of what you're doing there uh and uh you know how that all fits into your life today.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Yeah, sure. So I mean, again, like with me, uh, you know, my practice, like I said, it's it's just uh the whole aspect of it is I spend as much time with my patients as I want to. You know, I run the day, I decide how much time they get of me. And I'm always a big proponent of like, hey, if you forget something before you see me next, shoot me an email, give me a call, like let's not waste time fixing stuff, right? So the majority of my practice um is very mostly very fit, very active people, and uh and it and it's wonderful. Like the whole scope of it is like you kind of alluded to earlier. I always kind of say um uh practicing is like parenting. So my goal is to teach you not to need me.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

But at the same time, I still wish you'd come and visit once in a while and say hi.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Drop by. Drop by. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

I tell them, I tell them I don't charge for coffee. I'll even buy the coffee. Because I mean, I I truly adore my patients, they're wonderful people, and I get it. They don't really, you know, want to be in there because it means it usually means they're injured. They're usually still happy to see me. But um, you know, most of my practice, I said, is is uh when I did my I did a fellowship after I finished a chiropractic school in in injury rehab, because again, being a sports guy, I was interested in all aspects of injury rehab. Like we touch on all the types of injuries of chiropractic school to a large degree, but this just gave me advanced training in in all the things that I was still wanted to treat shoulder injuries, elbow injuries, ankle sprains, knee recoveries, post-surgery, all that kind of stuff, right? So my day has a little bit of everything, which I love. Uh, you know, I can see I can spend some day seeing the same thing all day, and and some days I can see something different all day, every day. And uh very, like I said, active people. Again, uh comparing it to um uh to child rearing in the sense with my patients, I always prefer that I have to pull them back a little bit than have to kick them in the butt to do something. So when you have an active population, you're usually trying to pull in the reins a little bit and say, Whoa, not quite yet, not quite yet, not quite yet.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yeah. Well, you know, I can I can speak from a pickleball brain perspective. And if I come to see you with a problem and we assess the problem, we come up with a treatment plan, and you tell me, Mike, I really need to recommend at least four weeks off from the game. Okay. So I want you to do this, this, and this every day. My brain, Colin, immediately switches from weeks to days. So I'll you say four, you say four weeks, I hear four days, and I'm leaving the office going, well, that's not so bad. I can play like what's today, Friday, mud Tuesday, I can play Tuesday. And maybe in some cases, I go as far as translating hours and or days into hours, like four. Did he say four? I think he just said take the afternoon off, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Oh, I get it. And again, I'm I'm the same way. I like ask, you know, ask my wife, I'm the most miserable person if I have an injury and I have to miss something. She's she's miserable too, which is an equal opportunity uh marriage. But uh I the joke I make in in clinic all the time is I said I've never gotten anybody better as quickly as they wanted to because they all wanted to be better yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Yeah, just so they could go away.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Even the first time I see them, they wanted to already be better. And I get it, and that's and that's great. Like people love to do the things they do. And when I when I have people, one of the big things I try and do is just modify their activity level. Because I hate to see people stop completely. I do it when I have to. It's important, like if they're gonna do more harm than good. But I like to try and find a balance of modification. Maybe it's playing a little bit less. Maybe it's you know, such instead of doing this, do that instead. Or you know what I mean? Work your way up. Like, you know, the golfers, they'll be like, well, just go chip some balls in your backyard lightly. You can't full swing yet. Or for a pickleball athlete, it's like, okay, well, maybe do some drills at home lightly, you know, just keep your mind engaged in it. And I guess from a positive aspect, it doesn't allow you to get, we know from the research, it's better to keep people doing things as much as they can, whatever that looks like. So, yeah, if I'm telling you to stop absolutely, I have good reason for it. I still don't like to do it. I only do it because I have to.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Yeah, well, I can't tell you a number of players that I've bumped into, calling my time in my short time playing the game that say, yeah, you know, I'm not, I'm really, I wasn't supposed to come back to the game till next week. I just you know, and they're almost looking around the club like I hope, you know, they're looking for their doctors. They don't, yeah, they're it's almost like this secret whisper, like, I'm not supposed to be here, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

And that's what I tell my patients. I'm like, just be honest with me, like I'm not gonna slap you on the wrist. I just need to know because if you're doing everything I think you're doing and you're not getting better, well, then I'm like, something's wrong here. What am I doing wrong? Or what do I need to do differently? Like, if you go out and admit to me, yeah, Colin, I just played eight hours of pickleball yesterday, I'm a little sore. I'm like, okay, well, I understand that.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Well, it's a funny game in that regard, and you certainly understand that. You know, although you're not necessarily a player, at least now, we're hoping to inspire you to become one, by the way. That's part of the magic of this podcast. This is a little Jedi night power here. You know, you will this this is the game you're looking for. I'll give you my best iota there. But uh, but you know, Colin, I can't tell you the number of times where I played maybe, you know, a four-hour game in for two, two-hour sessions. I'm literally walking out of the building, somebody's coming in, I know, and they say, Mike, we had a guy cancel. Can you stay? Sure. And I turn around, you know, back in for another two. But but here's something that, and I would love your professional opinion. I brought this up in previous podcasts, Colin. I fully believe that the brain and the body age at relatively different speeds. So I'm a 59-year-old, my body's 59, but this brain is locked in around 37, maybe 38. So the brain's always telling the body, we we got this, Mike. Like, oh yeah, you've got two more hours in you. And then the next morning, my body and my brain have to reconcile that decision, you know, which is always an interesting start to my day.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Oh, yeah, no, no, you're absolutely right. And I'm and I'm no different. That's what I am. I'm 51 now. And I do, I I I actually love being at this age practicing now because uh, you know, I can tease patients about it a little bit and I have more lived experience, shall we say? Like I understood, you know, I understood the processes that you know that happened with aging in terms of you know tissue structure recovery rates. Like I understood it all academically, clinically, but I was in my 20s when I started practicing. And so nobody wants to hear from a 20-some-year-old that they're getting old. Now I I throw it out there all the time because I can really. But yeah, I know what you're saying. I uh, you know, certainly when uh you know when I step out on the ice too with again, I play with a lot of 35-year-olds, and I still think I'm there. I'm not, but I think it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

You know what? I'm I'm okay with it, and I think as long as we understand it, now I will say I think it's more of a male issue than a female. I my wife does not suffer from this ailment. I have it full blown. She's not no, no, I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

I know where my limit is, and I'm gonna stop and the other that's the other thing, like one of my I have all my common dad jokes in the clinic, and that's one of the other ones. I was like, those face stuff, I'm like, well, you do have a Y chromosome.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

So you're kind of at a disadvantage, right? I guess exactly.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

I'm like, I didn't read the instructions, Colin. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

I love it. Well, listen, that's all terrific. Thanks for all that. It was really a great, a great start to today's conversation. I appreciate all of that. I want to go back into an email that you and I had exchanged a couple days ago, and we were sort of clearing the air on whether you were a player or not a player. You know, how did you fit into this crazy game of pickleball that we love so much? But uh, can you share the story about the 90-year-old patient that came in with a bit of an injury? Would you mind uh maybe going into that? I thought that was very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Oh, just you know, wonderful, wonderful gentleman. Just a you know, I hope to be this man when I'm 90. Just a ball of fire, big booming voice. Uh, he'd come into the office, and I could tell even if I was in my treatment room, I could hear him talking to patients outside. You know what I mean? Just like just comes in and takes the room. Wonderful man. And uh, and so this day, like I said, about 10 years ago, it was before COVID, anyway, give or take. I can't remember exactly when. But uh I just happened to be leaving the treatment room and he's walking in the door, and I see him. And uh right off the bat, I'm like, call him and he's bothering, I'm missing pickleball, you gotta do something. I'm just like first of all, I thought I misheard him. I was like, what did he say? Like and so anyway, you know, get him in the room and and and and we're chit-chatting. And uh, you know, the whole time before I'm talking to him, I'm like, what did he what did he say he was playing? And I think I thought he said pickleball, but again, like I told you in that email, being very ageist on my part, totally you know, admit that. I'm thinking, well, it must be like shuffleboard or something, right? Because he's 90. Like, what is he? It's gotta be. I'm not proud of that, but that's where my mind went.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Well, that's honesty. I appreciate that. We appreciate that on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

What did you say you were playing? And he says pickleball. And I was like, I'm sorry. I'm like, I don't know what that is. And so he goes on to explain it to me. And I was like, Oh, okay. So once I understood the mechanics of it, that it's a racket sport, you're moving laterally, he's explaining the steps and where he's having pain. Like, okay, you know, I know racket sports, I can I can go from there. I can I can glean enough to help you out and get this under control. And uh, so again, as soon as my day is done, like, you know, get days in. I'm sitting there, I'm just before I even, you know, go home, I'm on my phone. I'm like, what is pickleball? And again, realizing, like looking at the popularity and how it's becoming a bigger and bigger thing, it just seems to be going more and more and more, right? Like now, and you ask other people about it, and it comes up in seminars all the time. People are discussing it in terms of, you know, this is what we're seeing in the population, and we're seeing increased rates of this and this and that, because we think you know, people are doing this more and that more. So, yeah, now, like I said, I think I was the last person to hear about it, but it seems like it's uh it's only getting more and more popular.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yeah, it's really something. I think there was a point in time, and I'm not sure many of us would admit to this, but you know, if you played pickleball, you kind of didn't want to say that. Like you were like, What do you do for fun? Well, you know, I play, you know, you might whisper it to a friend of my I'm playing a little pickleball. I do think there was this overriding sort of theme that it was just for old guys in Florida, you know, and that's so people who are in their 40s, 50s, Colin, were almost a little embarrassed to say, you know, I'm playing it and I'm liking it. And now I've really seen that flip, you know, the last five, six years, you're proud to be a pickleball player, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

It's totally agree. Well, like I told you, like my uh my oldest son who's 20, him and his girlfriend go play. So I mean it's not I think it's lost, it's lost that stigma for sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Yeah, it has. And and and you know, I I guess it was well earned because if we really look at the sport 10 or 15 years ago, that was primarily the function a lot of ex tennis players that just couldn't handle the real estate of a tennis court. And when you you know appreciate that you can get four pickleball courts on the same footprint as one tennis court, you kind of get your head wrapped around the sense of okay, it's a paddle sport. There's a ball, there's a net, you hit it over. That makes sense. So you can understand how the game kind of appealed to those people that just couldn't handle tennis anymore. So yeah, what a great story, though, that you share with this 90-year-old. And I'm with you. I'm with you. I play pickleball quite regularly with people in their late 70s, early 80s. I curl with a gentleman that's 91 and he he throws with a stick, but he still sweeps. I mean, he's up and down that ice. Uh, and uh, and I pulled him aside when I first met him this year, Colin. I said, You're, you know, you're an inspiration to me. If I can be you, you know, in 30, I'm just thrilled. And I think it really touched him in that moment. He was uh he was happy to hear that. But yeah, we've got to get people off the couch. You know, I just I'm an advocate for health and wellness. My wife and I are really, if I told you how much we're into it, it would be I'd be embarrassed. I mean, you know, I I have a kitchen scale, I I weigh my food, I track my protein, I get my steps. I we we really want to be able to do what we would like to do in our 70s and our 80s, and we recognize the importance of moving. And yeah, so the game for me, Colin, on a very personal level brings that. When I see people that are competitive at 75, 80, and I'm at 59, there's inspiration there for me as a player, you know, there really is. Yeah, absolutely. So I love it.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

And I think, I think it's great. Like I said, with the um, you know, even from the aspect of the more, you know, healthcare as a whole, the more we have people active and socializing, the better it is just for our system as a whole. It it's a win, it's an absolute win. And so, and like you said, like the uh, you know, the sitting more, I always, you know, it's a big discussion with my patients in terms of just um when I was at Queens too, I studied evolutionary biology. So I was always talking about how they always conflate, they often sorry, conflate normal and common. And so I'm saying things like, well, when you're sitting throughout the day, I have to be careful because people get very defensive when you suggest that they've been sitting like you're insinuating that they're lazy. I'm like, no, no, no, no. You can be very active or very, you know, um, accomplish a lot at your computer all day, task-oriented, completing job. I'm not saying you're lazy, but I said from a biomechanical perspective, there's no difference from you sitting at your desk for eight hours and one of your ancestors 20,000 years ago sitting at a rock, sitting on a rock looking at another rock. Biomechanical, it's the same thing. And so that's what I mean by like, yes, it's very common to sit at a desk for eight hours a day. It's not normal. And so these kinds of things, like you said, we get people, I think we've understood that now, uh, the last few decades, is that and you understand why the motivation was to kind of create environments where people had to move less, because for thousands of years our ancestors had to move a ton, you know, to garner very, you know, challenging uh ways to get uh calories. And now it's the opposite. You can stay very still and accumulate lots of calories. You just call it Uber Each and you don't have to do very much, right? So we exactly we have the opposite battle. So things when we can get people involved in activities that they're looking forward to going to, like, you know, if they're working out to try and stay in shape, but they find it a grind, well, that's a tougher hill to climb. But if you have something like pickleball, where they love the sport itself, they love the socialization, they're excited to go to it, they're excited to do things that allow them to play pickleball more, like watch their diet and train on their off days. Well, yeah, how can we not be big proponents of that?

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Yeah, and I think that's really, you know, the base and the core of a lot of the success of the game and the growth of the game, Colin, is all of that. And you take the social side, if we were just to park the physical benefits of movement and cardio and you know, just leave that off to the side for just a moment. If if we just focus on the game for the social side and the number of people that are involved in this game that would otherwise maybe be spending their days alone, you know, people that are widowed or divorced or whatever the situation is, it's not particularly important, but the fact is they're alone. And so they come to the club for two hours, three hours. They've got a new tribe, they've met new people, they're building community. And a lot of these organizations like the Kingston Senior Center, which runs a lot of programming here in Kingston and the Ottawa Pickleball Association, and, you know, uh, they're just putting programming together to bring people together. The game is almost inconsequently, the game is there as the reason why we're doing it, but I don't believe it's the core benefit. I think the core benefit is that community that gets built. And then that leads to better health and wellness choices and movement and steps. And yeah, there's a lot to love about it. Yeah. Oh, very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Aspect of it, I mean, we're we're social beings by nature. Yeah, it's it's in our DNA. And again, obviously we saw a lot of it during COVID where that stuff, like you said, was amplified even that much more. And absolutely, I talk to patients about that kind of aspect of their lives all the time. And and you know, with people working from home more, I'm like, yeah, I get the benefits of it, but there's also there's a trade-off there too, where you're spending less time with other people. And I'm not sure that's always all positive either. So the pickleball atmosphere of creating that socialization, like I'm a huge proponent of that aspect of it as well. Like, I think it's tremendous. Nothing to upside.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

No, I love it. All great points. Thanks for that. And I think on a final, uh, just to note quickly, you know, I and I mentioned this earlier, but I want to go back to it. It's an important part for someone that may be listening, and maybe that's this person staring at their computer today, going, gee, maybe I should try this. But it's unlike any other sport in a sense that you jump into a game with three other people. It's generally doubles, two on each side of the net, and you jump in with people you may never have met, and the game is over in 12 or 15 minutes. You're off the court, you're standing courtside, you're chatting, you're waiting for your paddle rotation to come up so you go into your next game with three other people. So you could be with a group of 30 or 35 people at a social get-together, a pickleball game, and you're meeting a lot of people. But the magic to the game is the length of the game. And this was pointed out to me in a previous podcast by someone, and it really struck me because I hadn't thought of it. You know, a game of tennis takes a long time, a game of golf takes a long time, a game of hockey, yeah, you're on and off the bench in hockey, but you're, you know, you got no wind, you can't talk to anybody anyway. But pickleball allows you that chance to get out, get the physical for 15 minutes, go, go, go, go, go, and then step back and get to know each other. And I think that's for me the bullet, the magic bullet in the whole thing right there.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Oh, I couldn't agree more. And I have I have patients, you know, impress that upon me daily, how much they love that aspect of it. And and just to see the way they're excited to tell me about their last maps or their last or who they talk to and this and that, the other. And I, and I think it's tremendous. I'm so happy that this has come about because you know, without things like this, I'd be a little concerned about what things would look like going forward. So that that definitely makes me optimistic.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Yeah. Well, listen, that's all great stuff. And I appreciate us getting into that. Let's jump into your practice in a more uh let's go in depth on this a little bit for the next couple of minutes. Let's talk about the type of typical pickleball injuries that you're seeing on a regular basis. And then from there, I'd like to kind of wrap up our conversation uh at the end of this with you know some tips and advice from you to the average pickleball player, not the pro, not the elite player, because I think at that level they've had to learn proper warm-up techniques and drilling and downtime. And so they're managing their life in pickleball much differently than I am. So I'm a social player. I just want to go out and meet, you know, new people and play. And I think that's the bulk of the people that will be listening to this podcast, Colin. So let's start with some of those typical things that are walking through your door, you know, on a Tuesday morning and and uh and take lots of time with this because I really want to make sure we understand them. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

I mean, what I mean, personally, what I see the most is is is is knee injuries. Uh that's the most common one that I see personally. I don't think that's standard across the board. Uh, you know, from my understanding, looking at research and stuff, the typical type of stuff you see in paddle or racket sports with the elbow, tennis elbow or pickleball elbow now is probably more common. Uh that's one that you see. Uh the knee ones, I think again, that stuff, the knee, the low back stuff, uh to me is connected to uh, you know, the hip issues as well. Like getting back to us sitting a lot, it changes your mechanics a little bit. And so what happens if you're tight in your hip flexor region, uh your quads and some of your deeper hip flexors, like your cellus muscle and whatnot, you can't tend to activate your glute fibers as efficiently, like the stabilizers. And so when you're a sport like pickleball, where you're you know moving laterally and stepping laterally, if those stabilizers don't fire efficiently, uh it's gonna put some stress through your knee because some of those longer quadricep fibers are gonna try and compensate for that. And so that's what I see a lot of. Uh again, that kind of stuff affects the low back as well, simply because you know, when we look at postural stuff and it gets in the shoulder as well, we talk about like postural dysfunction and how when you go to participate in your sport, it uh your tissues aren't working in an optimal way or an optimal angle. So, for instance, when we look at the upper body, um people tend to get stiff and tight in the pectoral regions in the back of the neck, and they'll get weak and inhibited in what we call the deep cervical flexors and the scapular stabilizers. So, again, going back to normal and common, it's normal to see people sitting with their shoulders rounded a little bit like this. And then as opposed to sitting back with their shoulders back almost like they're at attention militarily, exactly. That doesn't look normal to people. That's normal, but it's not as common. So we conflate it. And then when you look at the lower extremity, the very similar type of thing is people can tend to get very tight in their lower backs and their hip flexors, like right in front of their hip, and they're very, very weak in their abdominals and their glute and their glute fibers. So that aberrant mechanics, like the body will always find a way. That's the amazing thing about it. If it can't do it the optimal way, well, it'll do it the secondary or the tertiary way. I mean, we will literally drag ourselves around by our hands if we have to to survive. Like the body won't just stop, oh, I can't do it perfectly. I'm not gonna do it. Nope. It's an amazing machine. Well, it'll find a way. And that's what, like, then these little underlying things, um, you know, these little imbalances might not come to the surface unless you're doing enough revolutions or repetitions of said activity. It's like I always use the uh the analogy of the alignment on your car tires. If they're not quite perfect and you only drive five kilometers a year, you're not gonna really notice too much wear, but you know, 50,000 kilometers, obviously you're gonna notice a difference, right? So that's with the knee stuff, that's kind of what I see. And so with them, I'm always working through, I'm teaching them how to isolate stretching out their hip flexors more efficiently and teaching them glute stabilization exercises to make that whole mechanics when they go to step and land, that their knee doesn't drive too far forward and their hips are engaging more quickly, and the whole system isn't engaging in a whole like shutter pattern of things shaking too much and getting strained and injured. So the knee, the Achilles is a big one, obviously. Um, it's a very common one. Uh, you know, unfortunately, like I think I mentioned when we were emailing, uh, some of that's too far gone for myself. They're actually ruptured. And and speaking to some orthopedic surgeons, they've definitely seen an increase in the last five years of having to do repairs in their offices. Um, the planar fascia is another big one, uh, the ball with the foot. Uh again, those fibers, when you look at them, uh, they're often the decelerators, meaning when you go to move, your tissues have to kind of pull back so you don't keep going. Uh, like that's what rotator cuff injuries are, essentially, is as you're moving your arm forward either with a swing or a throw, something has to keep that arm from keep traveling with the ball or the racket, somebody's got to pull it back. So it's like that elastic that's getting pulled and pulled back. And that's when you do that repeatedly, those eccentric loading exercises, as we call them, those can be challenging for the body. Um, and especially when you're on surfaces that don't have as much give. Uh, you know, we're designed to walk on things like earth and snow, uh, but we spend most of our time making contact with concrete or ceramic, or even I've had players tell me they find it more comfortable being on clay courts versus hard courts because they don't find it as tough on their knees. So there's more give with those types of services. So these are things obviously to take into consideration too, in terms of that kind of stuff. And then the low back stuff for sure is something that that I see. And again, that gets to be like, you know, I think a lot of people unintentionally, just because of the demands of their occupation or just life in general, general, have been hard on their backs by by sitting a lot, whether it be commuting to work. I know for me, uh, I always felt the worst in my kids' hockey tournaments when they were younger. Sitting in a car for five, six hours, sitting at a rink multiple times, and then driving home and Monday morning, I'm like, oh my God, like it looks bad when you're chiropractors walking into the office hunched over, right? That's not good.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

That's not good for your brand equity at all. No, not even a little.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

It's not a good look at all, right? Um, these are the types of things, like I said, when people who are are getting into the sports, um, what I found is like the people who are who, like you said, were the more competitive players when they were younger. Like I've had some patients that played like NCAA level tennis and whatnot, they tend to be more of the shoulder stuff because they've been hard on their shoulders for a few decades at that point. And so they tend to have more shoulder issues. The people who aren't coming from paddle or racket-based sports, I don't find they have so much issues with their shoulders. And they're getting taught very well. Like, you know, they're they're getting good instruction and they're understanding the mechanics to it. And so for them, it seems to be more the byproduct of just those stepping patterns and their body not being quite ready for those, because those tissues can be even just a split second of um of delayed response. I always kind of use the comparison. It's like when you miss a step or miss a curb and there's like that increased jolt exactly off the frame, because those muscles are designed to kind of absorb and dissipate force so it doesn't come translating up. And you do that repeatedly, um, yeah, it can have an impact, you know, with enough repetitions and revolutions that you get these little micro tears over time and then they develop. And so usually that's the type of thing that, you know, I'm trying to uh you know explain to them why that is, what we need to do, and how to prevent it in the future. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Yeah, it's interesting. And when you think of the game of pickleball, and you you obviously have a sense of it and you've watched it, you've seen it, and uh, it's a quick game, it can be a quick game, even at the sort of the beginner level, there's not a lot of time between, and I loved your analogy of the tires in the alignment and driving 5k versus 50,000 K. And you're not going to see wear and tear on that tire at 5K, but you will at 50,000. And you know, you think about the number of you know, times people are just, you know, within you know, a 12-minute game, how many times are you contacting the ball or or having to shuffle or shuffle this way or move back and forth?

SPEAKER_01 36:07

There's those patterns you're describing, though common in Iraq is for lots of other sports, you know, from a human behavior standpoint, those were things we would do once in a while. We'd normally just hunt and gather, be walking straight forward. You know, that's we can do that for hours and hours on end with very little problems, right? Um, and the thing with the upper extremity too is it's those are fast twitch muscles. Those were meant to push, pull, throw once in a while. Uh, I mean, that's why we started seeing things, uh, you know, latter half of the 20th century, like carpal tunnel, these little fine-tuned upper extremity movements that you know, our ancestors and even people not far before that ever would have done repeatedly, like gripping over and over again. Like even our ancestors figured out that it was easier to carry a bucket of water on top of your head or design a papoose to carry the child around. They realized how empowered their hands got. So it's not a new thing, right? So that's what I mean by these, you know, those types of things, though common and good for you overall, you have to understand the mechanic. Once you have a good understanding of the mechanics of the body, you can tend to minimize uh you can never eliminate them, but you can minimize them to a great degree once you understand how the body can move through those patterns uh most efficiently and most effectively.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Oh, that's great. So tell me to the average player, Colin, if you're talking to him, if I come to you and say, look, I want to educate myself on better court management, better court preparation, game preparation, what what does that conversation start to look like between you and I?

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Um, well, I mean, I think the the big thing is, I mean, you know, stuff that's outside my scope is obviously um get taught well. Obviously, there's wonderful instructions. I would never I would never recommend to anybody just go and start doing stuff on your own. Like, you know, get I think there's excellent people out there that are doing that, right? And so start there. And then obviously somebody more versed in the in uh you know, get your proper footwear, get your proper racket grip, something that's specific to you. That's the first basics of any sport, really, right? But from an overall standpoint, uh some people they're pretty knowledgeable, or at least they're aware of, not that they do it, is is the warmup. The warm-up is just in every sport. The dreaded warm-up. And being a hockey guy, I can't tell you how many times I see guys blasting into the dressing room and they're literally coming over for the first shift and skating hard, and I just feel like going over and handing them my card on the bench and I'll see you tomorrow. Like on and so that's people are aware of that one. You know, like I tell them, like, when you go out and just start hitting balls, you should already be warmed up. You know, basically, there's only so much blood in the body, and it's allocated where the body requires it at said time. So when we're not moving, uh, the majority of the blood flow is redirected towards our core, uh, you know, towards our digestive tissue, thosa-type things. I always use the kidney analogy. Like when we're at rest, our kidney gets about 12 to 15% of our blood flow. But when we're exercising, it gets maybe one or two, just enough to keep it functioning, but it's not actively really doing its filtration the way it normally would at rest. And so we need that blood flow to perfuse out into the musculoskeletal system. And that takes some time. And as we get older, as we know, it takes a little longer to accomplish that. So, whatever that looks like, like you know, walking, jogging, some dynamic stretching, even just doing like, you know, your shoulder rolls or you know, this kind of stuff, and just moving about side to side, hopping, that kind of thing, just so when you go out and start hitting balls, you're already ready to go. Like that's that's a big key. And that the research is very clear on injury rates during sports. They most often happen in the first third and the latter third. First third not warmed up, latter third fatigue, middle third, you see the lead in any sport. And so that's not surprising to people, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:41

That's interesting. Yeah, interesting. Well, I see it all the time. I mean, I'll see people run in with their Starbucks coffee, their blueberry fritter, they're slamming that. There's, you know, they're I'm I'll be right with you. They're fit and they're you know, their warm-up is walking the coffee cup to the recycle bin or the garbage can, whatever it might be at that particular moment. And and they'll jump onto the court and uh and away they go. And uh, and more often than not, you know, you can see as to your point about that fatigue setting in, as the game goes on, they're slowing down their response time. They play, you know, but they come out of the gate all you know, ready to go, guns ablazing, yeah, but zero warm-up.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

When you're talking, and so, you know, to to address like the the latter third, how to prevent that injury, is that that's your that's your off-day training, like you have in any sport, right? Like it's the idea that if you love this sport, like you do and many others do, you need to put the time and effort into make sure that you're limiting these injuries so you don't miss it. So, like the off-day training of doing like my recommendation with my patients when I show them, I have them doing like those glites, even if they don't have any problems, like glute stabilizing exercises with like bands, doing what I call like side steps. I have them doing shoulder scapular stuff where they're engaging their shoulder blade to protect their shoulder, uh, you know, core stuff, balance work, teaching them little just, you know, depending on their age and their abilities, their ability to hop back and forth, stand on one leg with their eyes closed. You know what I mean? Getting the body ready to go so you can minimize and teach them the mechanics of how you always kind of want your center of gravity to be like, you know, you you know your stance in pickleball when you're ready to receive. It's the same athletic stance as a football linebacker would have or a downhill smear. You're in that what we call the athletic position where your hips are exactly your hips are basically over your heels, your center of gravity is just in front of your hips, just behind your knees, just in front of your ankles, and you can move and you want your core to stay over top of your hips because that's where you're most stable. Boom, boom, boom. It doesn't matter which sport it is, a shortstop. You look at them all. It's the same biomechanical, you're ready to pounce, right? And so that's the type of thing you want to make sure that you've got those tissues able to do that with the hip flexibility and like these are the off day workout stuff, right? And so some people pickleball is their they consider that their that their exercise for the week, which is great, it's better than nothing, obviously. We love you to do it, but you know what again, we exactly we'd love for you to continue doing it as long as possible simply because it's what you love to do, and you're gonna, you know, that off day training is worth it because you don't want to miss, like you said, you don't want to even miss the socialization of it. I mean, you could still go if you're not playing, and I'm sure talk to people like this. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Yeah, no, it's so true. It's interesting to me though, Colin, that people who love something so much, and I don't think that they it's not a matter of not understanding the importance of the warm-up. There's not, there's not a, for the most part, not a pickleball player that would argue that warming up probably would help them feel better and play better, yet they don't do it. And so then try to translate that into the quote unquote home gym or, you know, even just a few bands, uh, you know, a bosoball, whatever you want to call it, um, just a few in-home exercises every second day, uh, even just 15 minutes of working on your balance or stretch, you know, like when we're done the podcast, I'm we've got a small little home gym and I got to go in there and do a few cable exercises today. And and that's, you know, helping. And I think for me, the moment I could translate the work I'm doing at home into a higher performance in said sport, whether that be curling or pickleball, that now the light bulb. So listen, I still fight it. As much as I said earlier, I love being healthy. I love trying to be healthy, I want to be healthy, and I understand the importance of doing what I need to do in the room next door here. And I will do that today, but I'm gonna have to fight it a little bit. Like it's still not, it's still not an addiction. The game's addictive, but working out still not for me, even after all the years that I've been trying to do it. So, but I do know now I can draw a line from when I work out and do some strength training, when I eat better and sleep better, I play better. And I think if people could connect those dots, this conversation would be a lot easier for both of us.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Yeah, and I get that. And I mean, that's you know, that's where discipline comes into play to some degree, but also just the enjoyment of it. And I mean, I'm a big proponent with my patients too. Like, I'm like I'm not a hypocrite. Like, I do these things in my own life because for many reasons. Like, I like to be a good example to my kids. Uh, I don't want to A hypocrite in the clinic and come in overweight and out of shape and hunched over. Like I love I love the activities that I do. I want to do them forever. Like I said, I want to be just like you and be that 80-year-old that's still participating in the things he loves to do, right? So yeah, it's it's a bit of a challenge sometimes. And my patients they come in kind of sheepishly, like, yeah, I didn't do my exercises and he came back. They're like, I always tease them because there's research going back years ago that shows like patient compliance, and the biggest, the biggest reason why patients don't or or do or don't comply with their with their practitioners is whether or not they like them. And so I tease them. I'm like, do you not like me? Like, come on, like you'll never shame than me to do it. It's not you, it's me. It's me. Yeah. And again, I am careful to try and be very isolated and targeted in terms of which exercise I deem to be the most effective. Like if there's if there's three or four that can take care of 90% of it, and it takes another 12 to take care of that another 5%, I've learned over the years, like, no, take that 90, take that win. That's gonna do the crux of it. I'd rather them do the three or four than none of the 12. So that's you gotta just you gotta pick your battles, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Yeah, for sure. Let me ask you this question because I've believed this for a long time, Colin. I think that what happens to people as they age, as we age, as I am, uh, boy, someone asked me my birthday. I was actually at I had to give blood because I work with a naturopath as well. So I they drew blood yesterday to to run my panel. I do it twice a year to keep an eye on all things that are important to me. And uh, you know, she has to ask you, state your name and your birth date. And boy, it gets hard to say 1967. Like it's it gets harder every time I I said that to her. I said, you know, I was here six months ago. It's a lot easier then than it is today. Can you can you not just hold up the number and I'll acknowledge it? You know, you have to make me say it every time I come. But but the story, what I was gonna ask you is I think what happens to us as we age is there's a slow decline in how we feel physically and mentally. And we just sort of kind of slide into this kind of this is just how I feel. And we sort of forget about how we used to feel and subsequently how we could feel again when our feet hit the floor in the morning. And and I would tie this back to um, and I'm gonna be careful here, um, but with some of the obesity issues that are happening globally today. And I think people, no one goes to bed calling at 150 pounds and wakes up at 300. It doesn't happen overnight. So people slowly get into this bad lifestyle, whatever the case may be, and there's a lot of reasons why it happens. But I think they lose connection with how they used to feel. And I think it happens to all of us in some form or fashion where we just kind of we can no longer relate to how we should be feeling um because it just is that a fair thing to say?

SPEAKER_01 46:42

Oh, no, no, for sure it's a fair thing to say. I mean, it it's it's tough, right? Because uh there's a number of aspects that go along with it. And and some of it is is it's very real, it's not just a feeling. Like you look at things like you know, collagen deposition or sarcopenia, which is our our loss of muscle mass after age 35, and and and decreased blood flow to peripheral tissues. And we know um, you know, when we look at uh mitochondrial measurements in terms of our ability to to to uh uh to leap as effectively or our dexterity, like they all they do diminish. They just do. And that's not just a feeling, that's a fact. And so I think sometimes you know people might feel like, oh, what's the point? You know, I'll never be 18 again, not the point. And I always tell people, like, come on, like rage against the dying of the light, right? Like just because you can't be the best, just because you can't be your 18, 20, 21-year-old version of yourself, be the best, whatever 50, 60, 70-year-old version of yourself. Like you owe it to yourself and your family and your loved ones anyway. If you don't do it for you, do it for them, type of thing. I use every method I can in there to motivate, right? Um, but yeah, no, no, there's an aspect of of uh of certainly people sliding into patterns. Uh it's just human nature. Like we, you know, it's it's ingrained in our brain to follow what you deem to be successful, even if it's not. And we're just we're we're creatures of habit. And habits are important because they allow your brain to kind of focus on changes in the environment. Because you, if you had to think about every little detail all day, every day, your brain would just collapse. There's too many things to think. Exactly. So the patterns are important, and and grooving new patterns uh can be tough. I think the research says it takes on average about three weeks to groove a new pattern. Some people are slower, some people are faster. But I think the big thing is start with like little things. You know what I mean? Like don't try and get there next week. It took you 20 years to get in this state. Maybe it'll take you 20 months to get back. So don't try and do it in two days because that's a big thing. Like this time of year is where like my my clinic tends to, you know, get really, really busy because I have people who've been a little bit, you know, over Christmas, over the holidays, over the winter here in Ottawa, obviously it's not great outside. Um and they and they try to get in shape in a week, right? They go back outside, they start running too much, too fast. And uh, and so yeah, but there is an aspect of that, like the the mental game of everything, for sure. And that's a part of it. And as we age, you know, I I try to joke around with my patients, and you know, you have to work twice as hard to feel half as good. And uh and don't worry, you're gonna forget about this in five minutes anyway. We'll be talking about something I was just joking with, right? But yeah, no, I agree. It is an aspect of it, it needs to be addressed, and I think that's where um that community, that socialization can be a massive, massive uh impact on those types of things that we're fighting against that you may not get if you're trying to get up and work it by yourself every day. It's tough.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

Yeah, it really is, yeah, for sure. Well, listen, all of this has been just excellent. Thank you for all of that. Uh, I'm mindful of the clock. I'm watching, we're pushing up against the hour. So um, before I let you go, is there anything else, Colin, that we didn't touch on? Uh, and I'd like to open the door to that conversation in just a moment, but I'd I'd also like to ask a favor, and that is, you know, can I kind of keep you on my radar in the next, you know, six, eight, twelve months? And I think I'd love to, you know, a chance to maybe sit down with you again down the road because this has been really terrific. And I think it's such a great episode for the podcast because it's really the stories behind the paddle. That's the the intent of this. And and to be able to get a sense of seeing it through your lens as opposed to just those of us that can't play enough, um, you know, has been certainly uh, yeah, it's been a real eye-opener. And I think you've you've really haven't said much that I think most of us wouldn't acknowledge and agree with, you know, in a sense, and no one's gonna argue with anything you've said today. Uh now, whether it affects change or not, that that'll be the trick, right? If we get just, but you know, if one person says, you know, I'm really gonna focus more on my warm-up, I need to really make that a commitment going into uh, you know, the spring season, especially as the outdoor courts open and we get back out and start enjoying that. So yeah, so thank you. So I'm gonna keep you on that list of people I like to reach back out to for sure. But yeah, but was there anything else that you maybe you were hoping we'd touch on that I, you know, again, I'm I'm new at this, so maybe I've missed the obvious, but um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:45

You know what the one thing is that I've um again, I was never good at this in my my younger years too, and I've tried to get much better at it, and I've talked to a lot of the pickleball players about it as well. Is one of the things I think is missed is after you play, it's the active recovery of getting blood flow to those tissues after you're done playing. Because a lot of people, they'll get in their cars, they'll go home, they'll sit on their iPad, and it's about tissue recovery. It needs blood flow to it to help those tissues repair that you may have injured to some minor degree while you were playing, right? I always tell the story of Michael Phelps at the 2008 Olympics. After each each swim, he was going into the back room and he had six or eight massage therapists working on him at once, just splayed out on the table. We don't all have access to that. Right. But even some light stuff, like if the weather's nice enough, go for a walk in your neighborhood for an hour afterwards. If you have a treadmill, get on that. Come home, do some light stretching, maybe some light yoga, get on your stationary bike, like that active recovery to get that blood flow back to your tissues. Like here years ago, people used to remember they used to interview the senators players after the games and they'd be on their stationary bikes after the games, right? So that kind of thing I think gets missed. And I think that will help people recover quicker. And again, all comes down to playing more. Like I think it's a wonderful sport. And it, you know, I'm it's nice to hear with people like you that are going to get this out there to more and more people and hopefully, you know, uh help them play as much as they possibly can. Because it's like I said, you know, I'm I am beating a dead horse here, I realize, but incredibly important, I think, moving forward that uh we get people more and more involved. If not this thing similar, this that has the the socialization, uh, the exercise, it's an absolute win.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

Yeah, it is. And it just, yeah, you're right. And it it just lends itself well to the social fabric of everything. Like it just there's so many positives come out of being engaged and being part of something. And, you know, I started curling, I think I mentioned earlier. And uh, you know, I draw a lot of parallels, Colin, between the social side of that sport and the social side of pickleball. You know, you get to meet new people, you're playing with new people, you're mixing it up through different leagues and different uh programming at the club. And uh yeah, it certainly has been for me just, you know, incredibly important the game of pickleball and now the game of curling in in that regard. I will often say I like the game, but I love the people. That's you know, sort of my statement. And and maybe the the the emphasis and and the launch point for the podcast was to be able to, you know, tell some of the stories of the people that I've met. And and they are some of the most fascinating people. They really are. You know, the things that some people have done, you go, You're what what you did so after you climbed that mountain, you went and did the other mountain. Oh, wow, okay, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

Yeah, we say that all the time. That's like one of the my favorite things about my work is I get to you know hear so many stories about amazing things that people have done, and it's it's it's incredible. Like, so I mean, that aspect of it, yeah, totally, totally get that.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

I love it. Well, listen, it's been an absolute pleasure spending a bit of time with you today, and I thank you for doing this again. I mean, this is uh a podcast that the day we're recording is launching tomorrow. So uh it will be live on April 2nd, and it's been uh quite a journey and uh so thankful for people like yourself uh willing to come on and and share your knowledge and your passion for what you do. And and I love this. I mean, I love your passion. I I loved what I did for a living. My I've instilled it in my kids. My wife and I both said to them, as I mentioned earlier, and to meet someone like you that obviously loves what they do is uh it's great. That alone is worth talking to you about. So so thank you for being here. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

Absolute pleasure on my end as well, Mike. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

You bet. Thanks again. We'll talk soon.