Welcome to part 2 of Pickleball and the rotator cuff! If you missed the first part you can find it here: https://www.serendipityptw.com/post/pickleball-and-the-rotator-cuff-play-better-and-prevent-injury
Last week we touched on the first three things you can do to keep your rotator cuff working well and injury free. Here are the rest:
Watch Your Posture:
This one is easy to ‘show and tell.’ If you slouch and try to raise your arm upwards, then sit up tall and try to do it again, you’ll notice that there’s a difference in how well your arm moves. If you tend to slouch, you’re essentially tightening up your shoulder in a way that makes your rotator cuff unable to ‘kick on’ in the way that it’s supposed to.
For pickleball, I find that people tend to adopt more ‘lazy’ positions such as slouching, over-reaching, etcetera, once they start to become fatigued or overheated. Especially when playing under the hot Naples sun, be attentive! If you catch yourself starting to slouch, or feel that your movements are starting to get sloppy, it’s time to take a break.
Keep it Strong!
Yeah, I know (again). Most people get just as excited about doing strength training as they do about doing pickleball drills. However, maintaining good strength through the rotator cuff is a good way to ensure that it functions properly and effectively for the long term.
There are loads of different ways to work on strength, so pick something that is enjoyable for you! You can use free weights, pool exercises, exercise bands, body weight resistance, a body blade…the sky’s the limit! Because everybody’s going to have a different starting point, there isn’t one perfect one-size-fits-all way to go about it. If you’re having a tough time coming up with ideas, you can always reach out to me for advice.
I know I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - the more closely your strengthening exercises replicate movements you do during pickleball play, the more you’ll get out of them. Seated or lying shoulder exercises certainly aren’t useless, but you won’t get as much bang for your buck as a pickleball player.
Take the Occasional Rest Day
Yeah, I don’t like it either. However, the reality is that doing one sport, pickleball included, every single day without failure isn’t great for your body. When you do the exact same motions with the exact same muscles day after day, you do become more susceptible to overuse injuries, and the rotator cuff is not exempt from that. If you don’t want to take a full day of rest, at least consider doing cross-training occasionally.
If you really don’t like taking rest days and are worried about missing out on the opportunity to up your game, there are a lot of ways to use the time productively. Watch some professional play online or learn a couple of new drills. Even better, take some footage of your pickleball play and review it on your rest day. Then you can spend the time looking at flaws in your game, and when you resume playing you’ll have a better idea of what you need to work on to really advance.
Don’t ‘Play Through’ Pain:
If you’re in the middle of a game and notice that something is starting to become painful, don’t just ignore it! I can’t tell you how many people I've seen observably in pain out on the courts, and I do understand the mentality, really. Nobody wants to make the call to end a game prematurely, but you can easily worsen an injury by trying to play through it.
If your shoulder begins to hurt during play, it may or may not be the rotator cuff specifically. There are, after all, a lot of different important structures around that area. Pay heed to your body, and remember that you can always play to win another day. Though not all pains indicate a bad injury, you don’t want to ignore something major and have to stay off the courts for an extended period of time because of it.
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Now, let’s say you do develop a rotator cuff tear at some point in your life. Pickleball related or otherwise.
In some cases, especially with large or complete tears, it’s appropriate to have surgery.
For mild to moderate tears, more conservative treatments such as physical therapy are typically recommended. The human body does, after all, have an incredible capacity to heal and recover. In these cases, the goals of treatment are to reduce irritation to the rotator cuff to allow for optimal healing, and then work on restoring normal and healthy function of these muscles in order to reduce the likelihood of future injury. Most people do quite well with physical therapy for the rotator cuff, and have little to no long term pain or difficulty with function.
Hopefully you never have a rotator cuff tear interfering with your pickleball play, but if it does happen, I think it’s important to recognize that it’s typically not a pickleball career ending injury.
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As the owner of Serendipity Physical Therapy and Wellness, I’m an avid pickleball addict with a goal of keeping pickleball players moving at their best and injury free. I work with players for anything ranging from reducing shoulder pain or tightness, to helping with injury prevention and good technique.
If you’re new, you can check out more of my advice and content here: https://www.serendipityptw.com/blog.
If there is anything I can help you with or you have questions, please give me a call at (239) 232-8155, or send me an email at Contact@SerendipityPTW.com. I would love to see how I can help get you moving at your best!
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