By Dr. Nicole Laird, DC
Did you know that Pickleball is currently the fastest growing sport in the world!? Ascent recently had a team bonding experience playing, and we absolutely understand why it’s getting so popular. With that said, we noticed it has a lot of shoulder involvement, and we want to help make sure you stay healthy, happy, and pickleball ready!
WHAT HURTS? → THE ANATOMY

- Your “rotator cuff” is comprised of a group of 4 main muscles that allow you to rotate your arm and stabilize your shoulder.
- Commonly when the rotator cuff gets injured, you will feel a dull ache at the front of your shoulder.
- Painful activities can include reaching overhead, putting on a jacket, or swinging your pickleball racket.
3 COMMON METHODS OF INJURY
1) Too Much:
- You are having so much fun playing pickleball with your friends, and when you look at the clock hours have gone by!
- As you use your muscles, it takes energy stores and causes fatigue. If you have a really long session your muscles are going to get tired, this can cause compensations in your movement and increase your risk of injury.
- You can help prevent this over time by performing strength exercises to increase the capacity of your muscles, so they can handle longer sessions before fatiguing.
2) Too Fast:
- You fell in love with pickleball and now you are playing every day. You went from never exercising these muscles to using them all the time and they weren’t ready for it!
- If you engage in repetitive activity without rest days, your muscles don’t have time to recover and heal between sessions. You are starting your pickleball in a fatigued state!
- This can be prevented by gradually increasing your exercise amounts to build up tolerance. It also helps to have a good warm up and cool down routine.
3) Too Soon:
- You have previously had an injury that’s feeling okay, and you push through to crush your opponent. Uh oh, it’s really sore again tomorrow!
- Usually, one of the first things to decrease after an injury is pain, and this can lead you to believe it is fully healed. However, your fresh muscle fibres still need to be strengthened in order to handle the extra forces placed on them.
- You can help this by following a graded rehab exercise protocol to make sure your body is ready to handle anything you through it’s way. If you have a lingering injury, it might be a good idea to consult one of our awesome chiropractors or physiotherapists to help you find relief and build resilience.
At Ascent, we believe “Everyone is an /Athlete”, including the many pickleball players we’ve helped, particularly with shoulder injuries. Pickleball’s social and competitive nature often leads to common injuries, especially to the dominant shoulder.
We’ve assembled these 4 exercises into a program on our app that you can do on your own at home or in the gym to strengthen your shoulder, and stay the top of your game.