Episode 17: The 5-Minute Warm-Up That Changes Everything — A Science-Backed Pickleball Pre-Game Routine

Most pickleball injuries are not freak accidents, they're accumulated debt from playing cold, session after session. In Episode 17, we break down exactly why static stretching is the wrong tool before pickleball, what dynamic warm-up actually does to your joints and muscles, and the five-move routine you can do in five minutes at the court fence before every session.

Topics: pickleball warm up routine, dynamic warm up pickleball, how to warm up for pickleball, pickleball injury prevention, rotator cuff pickleball, thoracic spine mobility, pickleball shoulder injury, pickleball knee pain, pickleball hip flexor, static vs dynamic stretching, pickleball longevity, pickleball performance tips, Paddle Pro Balm, pickleball recovery.

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About Paddle Pro Balm
Paddle Pro Balm is a pickleball-focused recovery and performance brand designed to help players reduce soreness, recover faster, and stay on the court longer. Built specifically for pickleball athletes of all levels.

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Disclaimer
This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always consult a healthcare professional before starting any recovery or treatment program.

pickleball recovery, pickleball injuries, tennis elbow pickleball, pickleball performance, pickleball pain relief, pickleball tips, pickleball training, paddle pro balm

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back, everybody. Happy freaking Friday to you. Welcome back to the Pickleball Recovery and Performance Podcast brought to you by your very own Paddle Pro Recovery, also known as PPR. Guys, what a week it's been. Thank you so much for joining us today. It's episode 17, the five-minute warmup that changes everything. Are you guys excited as I am today? First of all, a huge shout out to Renee, uh, let's see, Stephen R. and Michael Frango. Sorry if I mispronounced your name for sending us some congratulation emails. They are super grateful and been following us since episode two. And uh one of them's coming on the podcast here in two weeks. We're very excited to have him. And guys, if you want to come on the podcast and dink around some topics that revolve around our favorite sport, pickleball, please send us an email. You can send it at contact at paddleprobalm.com and we will get you scheduled in. We look forward to talking to you again. It's open debates, tips, tricks. Together, guys, is how we change lives, is how we embrace this wonderful community and sport of pickleball. So welcome back again, guys. Like I said, it's episode 17, and today's topic is the five-minute warm-up that changes everything. And I hope you're ready because today we are going after something that every single one of you does, or more accurately, doesn't do before every session. Okay? We'll be talking about the war, war, warm-up, all right? Or, as most of us actually do it, the complete absence of a warm-up. I've been there, I've done that, I still do that, and I'm sure you have too. But look, guys, I get it. Okay? You've had a full day, you're finally at the court. The last thing you want to do is spend time not playing pickleball when you could be playing pickleball, right? I understand this deeply, but I need five minutes of your time today, a little bit more than that, and I mean that literally, because five minutes is all this fix actually takes. All right? Listen up. Here we go. By the end of this episode, you're gonna have a specific science backed, okay? Also opinion, five-minute pregame routine built exactly for the sport you love, pickleball. Okay? And it's gonna be five moves, zero yoga mats required, by the way. Shout out to you, yoga knights. And it might be the single thing that keeps you on the court for years longer than you would have been otherwise. All right? Letta let us dive in. Let's get into it. Picture this, guys. It's after work, right? You have had a long day. You pull into your parking lot of your favorite court. You can already hear the pop, pop, pop of games happening, and your energy immediately shifts, okay? Because this is your time. You grab your bag, you lace your shoes up, and you walk straight onto the court. The first ball comes to you. You reach wide for it, maybe a little wider than expected. And you feel something in your hip, flexor, that makes you go, hmm. You shake it off, third point in, you go up for an overhead blaster, and your shoulder gives you a little reminder that it did not get the memo that what you were doing today. Sound familiar? Here is what's actually happening in that moment. Ready? Ears open. That window between getting out of your car and picking up your paddle, what I'm calling the card a court window, your body is quietly making decisions about how far it's going to let you push yourself, okay? And if you walk straight from a desk chair into a lateral shuffle, shush shall, your nervous system is basically playing defense from point one. Your muscles are cold, your joints haven't been lubricated, your nervous system hasn't been signaled that explosive lateral movement is about to unfold. You are essentially asking your body to go from zero to 60 or more with no warm-up lap, guys. Okay, and me. And the thing is, for a while, your body lets you get away with it until the day it doesn't. Guys, most pickleball injuries, by the way, are not freak accidents, they are accumulated debt, small stresses, session after session on a cold, unprepared tissue until something finally says, enough. We're going to stop that from happening to you starting today. Okay? So before we actually get to the routine, I want to spend 90 seconds real quick dismantling something that almost all of us were taught because it actually is actively working against you. Okay? The classic warmup most of us grew up with is what's called static stretching. Remember PE class? You grab your foot behind your back, you reach for your toes, you hold for 30 seconds, you take a deep breath or not. You were probably taught this in gym class, or PE, like I mentioned. Your coach probably told you to do it. And it feels like a responsible thing to do before your activity. Here's the rub or the problem. Research actually published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research shows that a static stretching on a cold muscle can actually reduce explosive power and joint stability before an exercise. Mm-hmm. Read that again. Hear that again. Stretching cold muscles before you warmed up can make you perform worse and make you more vulnerable to injury. Not less, more. Why? Because when you pull on a cold muscle fiber, you're not priming it, you're straining it. You're signaling the nervous system to protect that tissue, which causes it, guys, to tighten up. What we don't want. That's the opposite of what we want, right? What actually works is called dynamic warm-up. It's controlled movement through your range of motion that gradually increases your blood flow. It's everything. Lubricates your joints with something called cinnaval fluid and tells your nervous system exactly what kind of movements are coming, and so it can prepare. Yes, guys, our body is that freaking intelligent, right? You can control that. Alright? Think of it this way static stretching is like trying to stretch a cold rubber band. Dynamic warm-up is like rolling the rubber band between your hands first. Warming it up so it can actually move the way it was supposed to. Pickleball specifically demands lateral burst, sudden stops, and you got it. High torque rotations, overhead reaches, and that oh so low defensive squat. Yep, we all hate squats or leg day, I do at least. A generic static stretch routine is going to literally prepare you for exactly none of those things. So let's fix that, guys, today, starting right now. Real quick, a quick word from our sponsor, Paddle Pro Recovery PPR. If you haven't, or if you're just joining the podcast, check out paddleprob.com. Pop in your email for that first timer 25% discount. Rapid two-day shipping. It'll last you four months. It's a plant-based, super non-chemical, organic concentrated pain relief bomb. Takes your pain away in five minutes, works for six hours transdermally, naturally, to actually reduce the inflammation. Okay? It's a two-punch. It gets you back on the court. It was crafted so that you don't have to worry about a spam email coming your way in a week after you order to buy another one. Okay. We want you to actually recover. And if you never buy another one or you use it for a year, that is the win and the goal and the model and the mission for us. So don't forget to try that out. That combo of that bomb, preventative or post with your proper warm-up, will change your game. All right, five moves. You ready? Let's build your routine. Grab a pen, paper, or a recorder, or subscribe and save this podcast. Okay? Five moves, five minutes, zero equipment. You can literally do all this at the court fence before you even pick up your paddle. Here we go. Move one. Leg swings. Front to back and lateral. Stand next to the court fence and hold it lightly for balance. Okay? Swing one leg forward and back in a controlled arc. Not a kick, not a swing. Okay? And let the hip move through with full range of motion. Ten reps, then swing the same leg side to side across your body. Then switch legs. Why does that matter? Well, your hip flexors and your adductors, the inner thigh muscles, are the first thing to strain when you lunge wide for a ball. This move opens them up, guys, before that moment happens and prepares those exact muscles so that when you're doing it, it's ready for it. Okay? Think about the last time you dove for a wide ball and felt something in your inner thigh. That's what we're preventing here with move one. Move two. Arm circles, the spiral method. Start with a small fast circles forward, okay? Reaching outwards with both arms. Gradually expand them. Think of a spiral getting wider. Until your arms are doing full sweeping windmill circles, not the ones in Kansas off of I-70, but your arms. Okay? 30 seconds forward, 36 backwards, that's it. This is going to lubricate your shoulder joint and activates what are called spacular stabilizers. The muscles around your shoulder blade that absorb the shock every time your paddle is impacted. Your rotator cuff is a complex stabilization system, not just a simple hinge, guys. And it needs the blood flow and nitric oxide before it takes the load. Arm circles are the fastest way to give it that. Okay, so do it. Move three. Your torso twist with a reach. Feet a little wider than your shoulder width. Rotate your upper body to the right and reach your left arm across your body's midline. Come back to the center, rotate left, reach right, slow and deliberate. Ten reps on each side, that's it. What you're doing here is you're targeting the theoretic spine, your mid back, which is the pivot point, guys, for every overhead, every cross-court dink, every quick reaction volley at the kitchen line. When the theatric spine is locked up, okay, it's locked, which it will be after eight hours at your desk, by the way. Your lower back and your elbows absorb all the rotational load that your mid back was supposed to handle when you were born. That is a fast track to elbow pain, very quickly, and lower back issues. None of us want that. Alright? Move four lateral shuffles. Do not sprint and do not race, guys. Just a comfortable side to side shuffle at about 50% effort for 30 seconds. Stay light on your feet, please, and keep your feet, your knees soft. Okay? Here's why this one is non-negotiable. Did you hear that? Move for. Do it. According to the American Council of Exercise, warming up your glutes and ankles is essential for lateral stability. Without it, your knees absorb the shock of every shuffle. And that debt compounds rapidly. A 30-second shuffle before play literally signals your nervous system that the lateral movement is about to begin. It's coming. So it stops treating every sidestep like a surprise. Again, yes, your body is that wicked intelligent. Okay? Your body actually needs to be told things. Hey, we're about to move sideways a lot, so let's not panic every time. That's literally what you're doing in a nutshell. Okay. Move five. Single. Dynamic lunges, guys. Step forward into a shallow lunge. Pause for one second. I'd say take a deep breath and then push back to your starting position. Alternate your legs, do 10 reps. Okay, five each side. Very easy. This is going to activate your quads and your glutes so your legs are ready to drive through the ball rather than to reach to it. Players with cold, unactivated glutes tend to play from their knees, right? Ah, my frickin' knee hurts. Meaning the knee joint absorbs the force that should be distributed through what? The entire leg. That's what your legs do. They're the foundation of the energy from the ground. They're what keeps you up. So a dynamic lunge is gonna fix that before your first point. Very, very easy, guys. Now, I want to zoom out for a second because I think the warm-up conversation usually gets framed wrong. Right? People think of it as a performance tool. Like if you warm up, you're gonna play better in the first game. You know what? And that's true, but that's actually the smaller unintended benefit. The real reason, guys, to build a warm-up habit is longevity. Yes, y'all have that uncle in Kansas or Wisconsin who just retired and he's like, I'm gonna go buy me a self a lake house and skip me out some bass and learn how to tie a fishing rod. And you're like in your head, you're like, Yeah, if you sit in that lazy boy recliner at the age of 73, your body's gonna start telling itself, we're done. We just live life. And you're gonna pass away. By the way, that's kind of a true story in my life for someone I knew, right? Longevity, guys! You've been on the pickleball court. Who are you playing with? Yes, there's some 17-year-olds, 23-year-olds, but the majority is like 39 to 75. I play some 4'5s to 5'0 that are 71 and 74 years old, and they stomp the ever-lipping crapola out of me. That's longevity. Guarantee they've got a routine, right? Pickleball is booming right now, guys. You know this. The sport is growing so fast almost in any other recreational athletics combined. And with that type of growth, orthopedic offices are seeing a wave of pickleball-related injuries. There's things like shoulder tears, elbow tendinitis, acilly strains, knee issues. And the overwhelming pattern in a lot of these cases is not a freak one-time incident. It's that accumulated stress on the tissue that was never properly prepared session after session. What am I saying? It's preventative. You can live long and look good. A proper dynamic warmup, guys, does something specific that most people don't know about. It triggers vasodilation. Big, huge. Write it down. Vasodilation. That is the widening of your blood vessels, flooding your working muscles with oxygen before they need it. You're literally doing that before it needs it. You're telling your muscles, hey, we're about to rock this cord out, pimping, big pimping. So let's get prepared. You can do that in five minutes with the five steps. It's gonna stimulate the production of cinnovial fluid, the lubricant that your joints need to move, right? So your knees, shoulders, hips, and ankles are actually cushioned before impact. Who would have known that? Y'all know those people in your life. Oh, how you doing, Barbara? Will my knees are just hurting and the dog says I need to have some surgery. Look, I'm not putting down Barbara or that person. I'm just doing something to let you know that all that stuff is preventative. We were made so intelligent. Our brains and our bodies are so amazing. If you learn and do the simple things that seriously don't take a lot of time. Okay? You can prevent that. You cannot get those things from standing still and reaching for your toes in PE class. You get them from movement. I want to play, I don't know about you guys, but I want to play pickleball at 70 still. I want you to be on the court at 75. The players who make it that long are not the ones that have the best genes or the best genetics, right? Oh, I got good genes. Barbara, you look good today. Yeah, my genes are good. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They're the ones who respected the five minutes before play and the recovery after it. Every single session. It was habit. It was habitual. That type of consistency is the whole game. The car to court window is not dead time. It is preparation time. Start treating it that way. And you'll thank me later. Matter of fact, you'll thank yourself later. Because you'll be playing at 75 and looking good, feeling good. Okay? Alright. Recap. Let's close this baby out. Alright, because it's Friday, and I want you all to have a good weekend and a good rest of your Friday and a Friday evening. Also, be safe. Okay? Crazy world out there. Alright, so static stretching on a cold muscle reduces power and stability. Stop doing it first. Dynamic warm-up is the science back replacement. Movement, not holding. Leg swings, open the hips and the inner thighs before the wide reach happens in your game. Arm circles, spiral method, please. Lubricate those shoulders and activate those rotator cuff stabilizers. Do your torso twists with the reach. Unlock the thoracic spine so your elbow and your lower back don't take the hit. Lateral shuffles. Let's signal your nervous system and protect your knees from absorbing sideways load. Dynamic lunges, your fay fave. Mm-hmm. Oh, I know them. No. Activate the quads and the glutes so your legs drive instead of just reacting. Five minutes, guys. Five moves, zero equipment, zero subscription cost, no money in, right? Only fruit and results back for free. Do it every time. And I highly recommend that you intertwine and include the paddlepro bomb after. Okay? Again, paddleprobaum.com. For the soreness that still shows up, even if you're doing things right, it's gonna help the inflammation go away. Alright? So here's the truth about warmups that nobody ever says out loud, guys. The only reason we skip them is because we're lazy. No, but let me rephrase that. Is because nothing bad happened the last time we skipped them. That's it. Alright? You don't have a recorder saying, oh, that's what happened last time, until you do. That's the entire logic. I went straight to the court yesterday and I felt fine. So clearly I don't need it. Uh-huh. Stinkin' thinking. You ever been told that? And that works, guys, until season 47 or season 82 or the random Tuesday when your hip flexor decides it's had enough of being surprised. You don't build a warm-up habit because you feel bad without it right now. You build it, and you're gonna build it because of this podcast, but also because it's your future self. The one who still wants to be playing three, five, ten years from now, guys. I know you do. It's going to be really grateful for you, your family, your body, your knees, your joints, your elbows, your head, all of it. Okay, you'll be grateful you did. Five minutes starting with your next session. That's all I'm asking. Try it out, and then comment us. Contact at paddleprobomb.com. Send me what is happening when you implement that routine. Okay? Thank you. Guys, if this episode has given you something useful, and I truly, truly hope it did, please share it. It's not me, it's not the episode, it's not our staff, it's not our company, it's the people coming together, sharing, talking about things. Okay, pickleball is kind of young to me, not like I've been playing three years, but it's like this sport, and I did a podcast on this, you can listen. I'm sure it is for you, that just came out of nowhere. And it's fun, it's super addicting, okay? So I want to work with all of you listening and all the ones to come and your family members and whoever you share this with to bring you on the podcast to debate, to talk about the tips you're doing. What has helped your game? What has helped your recovery? What do you do preventative? Do you take certain supplements? Let's get the word out there together. We can only do it together. So send it to your doubles partner, drop it in your pickleball group chat. Please share it on Facebook. Leave us a five-store review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you're listening to. It genuinely takes you literally 60 seconds to two minutes, okay? And that's how the show finds new listeners, and that's how together we can help others. Again, I invite you to send an email, contact at paddleprobaum, b-a-l-m, as in Mary.com, and let me get you on the podcast. Let's do this. I'm excited to meet you guys. I want to talk about what you're doing. I want to learn. So don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. We do this Mondays and Fridays. And if you have an episode idea or some, I don't know, question or something unique, send it to me. I'll do a podcast on it and bring you on. Okay? All right, we're here every week, Monday, Friday, covering recovery, performance, injury prevention, nutrition, and everything in between related to pickleball. It's built specifically for pickleball and athletes. I'm your host, Cole. This has been the Pickleball Recovery and Performance Podcast brought to you by Paddle Pro Balm episode 17 is a wrap. Warm up, play hard, recover smart. I will see you guys or not see you Monday. And always remember to love the one you're with. Be safe, serve others, and have the best, blessed, amazing weekend. We will talk to you soon. See ya.