3 Commonly Tight Areas That Worsen Your Pickleball Play

Like many others in Naples, I play a ton of pickleball, and thus watch quite a lot of it as well. If you watch 100 people play, you’ll find that each player has some uniqueness to the way that they move around the court. Sometimes this uniqueness falls under the category of ‘personal flair,’ but other times people’s movements are clearly impacted by factors such as tightness, muscle weakness, bad habits, and other such things.

There’s a lot to look at when observing how a pickleball player moves, so today I want to keep it concise and focus on tightness specifically. Here are 3 that I often see pickleball players are tight, and how they can hinder a person's game. 1. Shoulder - External rotation

If the terminology above sounds like gibberish to you, shoulder external rotation is the motion that you make when you bring your forearm out to the side when preparing to hit a forehand shot. It should be one of the most common arm movements that you make during the game! If you have excellent motion here, you should be able to move your shoulder so that your forearm ends up positioned nearly parallel to your torso, with the fingers pointing away from yourself.

Ultimately, somebody who lacks external rotation is more likely to overuse other motions of the shoulder, or the wrist and elbow, in order to accomplish what they need to out on the court. This can contribute to problems such as the dreaded tennis (ahem, pickleball) elbow, among other unpleasant things such as pinching shoulder and neck pain.

Why does this motion become tight so often for pickleball players? It's influenced by a lot of things, such as arthritis, frozen shoulder, posture, spinal tightness, bone spurs, as well as various shoulder muscle and joint problems. Each of these things should be improvable with proper treatment, but the type of exercises and activities to help each of them can vary quite a bit! This is why it's so important to have problems looked at in person.

2. Neck Rotation

In order to respond to the ball, one must be able to track the ball, right? Though not often thought about in pickleball, players use neck rotation all of the time, especially when trying to quickly move our heads to see if an opponent just hit a ball in or out.

Depending on the person, some of this tightness may be impacted by chronic issues, injuries, age-related changes, or posture. Ideally, most people should be able to turn their neck to the point that their chin is just about in line with their shoulder in both directions. Do keep in mind that there is some variability from one person to the next, here. Someone with a limited ability to turn their neck is more likely to compensate by turning their entire torso to look to the side or over their shoulder. The human body is a master of figuring out creative ways to work around an issue, and usually people don’t even realize that they do it. However, these workarounds tend to be less efficient, and over the course of many repetitions, compensation can lead to other injuries and problems.

This is another one of those things that tends to improve with exercises and hands on treatment, fortunately! 3. Back Extension Having great extension through the back is critical for a lot of different things. Out on the courts, I find that there are many individuals that lack extension through the spine, but also many others that actually have decent motion and just don’t use it out of habit.

The ability to extend the back is critical when you have to reach for an overhead shot in particular. Being able to stand tall also allows us to be able to make the most of our core strength, which plays a big factor in overall stability, which not only impacts a player's balance but their ability to return the ball with good accuracy.

A tight spine will lead to worse function of the shoulder and hips as well - without going into a long and convoluted physiology lesson to explain this, I’ll ask you to do a quick experiment for me. Raise one arm as high as you can, making a quick mental note of how much movement you have. Now, slouch your upper back to simulate some tightness in the spine, and try to do it again. You should notice a big difference between the two tests! Essentially, the joints and muscles of the shoulder and hips are in such close proximity to the spine that back tightness will have a noticeable impact.

Did you find that any of these motions were tight for you, or perhaps even a little bit painful? For any given area of the body, there are many factors that may contribute to a person having tightness, but the good news is that in most cases mobility can be improved to allow for better play, more normal movement, and injury prevention.

At Serendipity, I offer wellness services to help players work on factors such as tightness that can impact a pickleball player’s game, with the goal of helping people move better before a potential injury occurs. I'm a big believers in the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Are you experiencing issues with tightness that may be impacting your pickleball game or other aspects of your life? Give me a call at (717) 422-2564, or send an email at Contact@SerendipityPTW.com