You Can Play Pickleball For Decades If You Train For It | Ashley Romine

Pickleball is fun until your calf pops, your elbow aches for weeks, or your knee flares up after “just one more game.” We sit down with Doctor of Physical Therapy Ashley Romine, owner of The WellCo in downtown Bluffton, to get honest about why pickleball injuries are surging and what actually keeps players healthy. The big theme is a mindset shift: if you want to stay active, you have to treat pickleball like a sport, not only a social hour. That means respecting volume, mechanics, and recovery before pain forces you to stop.

Ashley walks us through the most common pickleball injuries she sees, including Achilles and calf strains, knee pain, elbow issues, low back pain, hamstring problems, and adductor tightness. We unpack the hidden mistake many players make: warming up with biking or running, then stepping onto a game that demands lateral movement, rotation, and quick, springy reactions on the balls of your feet. You’ll get a simple, repeatable 5 to 10 minute warm-up framework featuring eccentric loading, side-to-side prep, trunk rotation, and “ready position” movement that better matches what happens in a real match.

We also go beyond the court with a closing reflection on prevention as a lifestyle, not just an injury plan. If we build strength and mobility to protect our body, what would it look like to build margin and awareness to protect our emotional health too? If you want to play pickleball for the next 10 to 20 years and feel better doing it, hit play, share this with a pickleball friend, and subscribe, rate, and review so more people can stay active without getting sidelined.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Are you ready to live an active lifestyle? Welcome to Behind the Bluff, where we believe every moment of your life is an opportunity to pursue wellness on your terms. Hey everyone, pickleball might be the fastest growing sport in the country. And I know that here at Pullmetal Bluff, it's quickly becoming one of the most popular ways that our members connect and stay active. But with the growth, there has also come a rise in injuries. Everything from Achilles issues to elbow pain and knee problems. Today, I'm joined by none other than someone who you may already know, Doctor of Physical Therapy Ashley Romine. She is the owner of the Wellco in downtown Bluffton. And Ashley works with us here at Palmetto Bluff on Tuesdays, helping members move better, recover faster, and stay active in the things they love. Today we're going to talk about one of the biggest questions we're hearing right now. How do you keep playing pickleball without ending up sidelined by injuries? Ashley, welcome back to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Hey, glad to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Yeah, I was uh reflecting back, and it was in 2024 we had you on. Keys to Pain Free Exercise was the episode, and it was episode 18.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

I was there for the beginnings.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

So fun. Glad we could make this happen because you are in just a little over an hour about to do a hands-on workshop with our membership on this topic.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yep. Pickleball. Pickleball injuries. Yeah. Keeping your body resilient for pickleball. Which really translates into other sports as well, but there's some overlap. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Well, let's go ahead and dive in. A little context here. We know pickleball has exploded in popularity over the last few years. I know that in our future planning of amenities here at Palmetto Bluff, pickleball courts and more of them is a priority. From what you're seeing as a physical therapist, why are there so many injuries on the court associated with this sport?

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah, that's a multi-layered question, which we're gonna be diving deeper into it. But I think when you hit the nail on the head, there's a lot of increased volume in people playing. There's more interest. And with that, you have more very, like there's more varied age groups of people that are playing, right? I mean, when I first moved here 14 years ago, I would see, I would treat a lot of patients from Sun City, and those were the ones that were like the major pickleball players. And over especially the last 10, 14 years, it's not that way, right? You have people that are in their 20s, there's college-age kids that are playing here in Palmetto Bluff. I mean, there's a wide range of ages that are playing, and it's not necessarily grouped by age group. You might be playing with somebody that's 20 years younger than you and is moving differently than you. And then you also kind of have these different mindsets of people or groups of people. You have the people that are they use pickleball as their social time, like their social hour. Like they're gonna go and play three games mixed up with different people, they're gonna drink a beer in between, and then they're like gonna go back out and play again. And then you have this other group of people that they might say they're there to be social, but they have no problem like slamming it down your throat. You know what I mean? Yeah, they're like they're actually super competitive. They have no qualms with just like just whacking you in the face with a ball. And um, you know, so they're moving fast and um and they can get hurt too, and they may still be the person that's drinking a beer in between, you know. Um, but they're like they're there to kill it, like they're there to crush it, you know. Um, and I but I would say one of the common threads between these two groups is that you may not be looking at it like a sport, you might still be looking at it as a social activity, which means um you may not be warming up properly, you might not be training your body properly, you know what I mean? You might be stringing together multiple days of doing the same activity. Um, and again, we'll get more into that, but I think those are those are probably like some of the some of the things that I'm seeing.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Yeah. Ashley, it it it sounds like just a perspective shift of how we show up towards the court and treating it like a sport could be a good first step.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

For sure.

Common Injuries Seen In Players

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Yeah. Well, you treat a lot of people here in our community, and I I know they love having you in their backyard. But what are you specifically seeing here at Palmetto Bluff with pickleball players?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

So people love pickleball. I go out and play sometimes with my kids too. I've taken some lessons and it's a fun sport. And I I touched on this a minute ago, but I think there's a high volume of playing. And especially if you get out there and you've got a mixed group where you know you're pairing up with different people and like kind of doing this round robin playing, you can be out there for several hours and you might just go out the next day and do it again. There's several people that they'll go and play in the morning and then they'll go and take a spin class and they'll do a yoga class and PB strong and then they'll go out and play again that night. Um, or they'll play 18 holes of golf in the morning or play tennis in the morning, and then they'll go and do pickleball as well. So it's like this high volume of sports activity.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Yeah, and layered on without potentially any recovery practices or maintenance with that level of volume.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Mm-hmm. And then the other thing that I think is unique to hear is that people might run to the pickleball court or they might ride their bike to the pickleball court, and then that's their warm-up. But the thing about running and biking is this is a sagittal movement, right? It's just front to back. But are you going front to back? I'm gonna talk about this more, but are you just going front to back when you're playing pickleball? Not at all. Absolutely not. So if that's your warmup and you're going your bike ride to the pickleball court is your warm-up, that's gonna be an incomplete warm-up for the sport that you're about to do. So I'd say that's kind of unique to here because it's all within the same neighborhood, so people can get there that way. And I'm not saying that that's a bad warmup. There needs to be more. Again, we'll get into more of that. But um, aside from that tissue specific, you did touch on this in the beginning too. I would say Achilles tendonslash calf injuries, knee injuries, elbow, and then low back injuries, where we get into also hamstrings and adductors.

Treat The Cause Not The Pain

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Interesting, low back, yeah. And it's it's great. Those are kind of the big injuries that we're seeing as a result of the volume, pickleball play. Now, how do you go about treating these most common injuries that we're seeing?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Well, that's that kind of depends on that that's very individual, right? So it's gonna depend on different things. So um, so if I'm evaluating somebody, though the things I just talked about would be things that I would go over with somebody. Get an idea of what does the week look like for you. If I see that you're stringing together, you know, multiple sports in the same day, but you're not varying it up with doing strength training, you're not doing any stretching mobility work, you're not taking an active recovery day, we might be talking more about how to um diversify your activity and how to, you know, make create more resiliency in your muscles. Um, if uh if it's something that's mechanical, right? Because this again, I think we're gonna get into this more, but you know, let's say it's something that to do with how you're holding the racket. Or sorry, not the racket, but how you're holding the paddle. Sorry. There's like some carryover, yeah, right? Like how are you holding the paddle? Are you having the right mechanics with your swing and things like that? Um, are you properly warming up? You know, so that that could be like a mechanical issue that plays into that. Um, but then, you know, going deeper to that, somebody might have an underlying back issue that they have always just taken an advil and then gone along and then carried on, you know what I mean? Or maybe this calf issue that's come up every once in a while, you've just ignored it or haven't gotten to the root of the problem potentially.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

You haven't gotten to the root of the problem. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

And I think of um, do you ever watch The Office? You know, the sites.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

I watch it whenever I'm traveling and in a hotel, it's always like on repeat on a station, so we usually flip it on.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Okay, so you've probably gotten through it in your sleep.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Uh, but there's an episode where there's a talking head of Angel, she's one of the characters, and she she's sitting there and she pops a Tylenol. It's just her sitting there, she pops Tylenol, and she talks to the camera and she says, I don't have a headache. I'm just I'm just preparing. I'm just preparing for it. And that's the exact mindset that gets people in trouble. Yeah. Because you probably hear this all the time because you work with people here in Palmetto Bluff. If you're taking an Advil so that you can go out and you can go and play six hours of pickleball, and then you've got your Advil already ready in your bag so that way you're prepared so that afterwards you're not experiencing any pain. You that's that's a warning sign that you're you know that's the same. Something's off.

Mistakes That Lead To Injury

SPEAKER_02 9:09

We we could go after the a true solution so that the the pills don't have to be in place. Well, I'm I'm glad you took us there, kind of like at this high level. We've we've got to assess volume, what are the types of activities someone someone is doing, and then even the mechanics. I'm glad that that's front and center because how we play anything or how we do something could be the root issue that's causing the pain in the first place. So let's go into mistakes. Uh we're all human, and those of us who are humble, we we make we we know when we make big mistakes, but with pickleball, it might not be as obvious. So what are the mistakes on the course? Oh, sorry, not the course, golf course, right? On the pickleball court that eventually lead to injuries. We've talked about the warm-up. What else?

SPEAKER_00 9:59

With the warm-up, maybe not warming up properly. So get I would definitely want to emphasize that not warming up properly. Um if you you might have heard this before too. If you hear a pop, have you ever heard of the pickleball pop?

SPEAKER_02 10:14

I've not heard the phrasing like that.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Pickle pop.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

So if you feel a pop, which a lot of times is gonna be in people's calf, um, I mean, Achilles are gonna know because that thing's gonna ball up. But um, if you hear a pop, then something may not be right, especially if you have if you have a pop and then pain associated with it. Um that would be that would and playing over the top of something like that, that would be a mistake, right? So like if I get if I get uh a pain and it's like breathtaking almost, and then I'm like, I'm good, I'm just gonna like play through it. You're I guarantee you're gonna have a hard time getting out of bed the next day.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Um, and so I would say I see a lot of of that.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Now, with the pop, before you move forward, is that more of a calf strain?

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Is that that's when I see it the most?

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Sometimes people will also actually get it in their hamstring too. That's just coming from experience. It's not a like a diagnosable thing, probably.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

But yeah, but that's a generalized, you know, typical scenario.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah, I'd say a lot of posterior chain mean like the back side of people's body. So calf, hamstring, even sometimes those long muscles in your back, perispinal, some people call them the meats, the meats of the back. They'll they'll even get a pop back in there. So if you're like, nope, nope, just just play through. I don't want to let my teammate down or like make all these people have to go home for that, that playing through that I think is is a big mistake. Um, so not warming up properly, ignoring some of those warning signs, and then not not taking any kind of like active recovery. Um, and that could even be a cool down after, you know, after you're playing pickleball or you do any kind of cooldown activity. But if that's all you're doing is those sports activities and you're not doing any weight training or anything like that on the in-between and working your muscles in different ways, that's that's a big mistake too.

A 10 Minute Warm-Up Plan

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Yeah. Yeah. It really triggered for me when you alluded to the posterior chain being a lot of the the injuries that come up or are a result of, you know, even connected in that way, where we we typically, from a strength training perspective, kind of miss out on training those muscle groups as effectively as we could if we don't have a program in place. Um, I'm looking forward to potentially digging into the cooldown a little bit because I I love that you brought that up as a great step after play, and and we might be able to dig into some strategies there. Today, I I know we wanted to really focus on the warm-up, and um, I've heard that you're gonna provide an incredible hands-on warm-up to our members here in a second in the workshop. So, for the listener out there, what's the five to 10 minute warm-up you'd want them to do before they swing the paddle?

SPEAKER_00 12:54

I actually I can kind of put this together with a cooldown. So we can kind of talk a little bit about both without getting into like exercise specific, but in general, I tell people if you're about to play a sport, you want to warm the muscles up in a way that you're gonna use them for a sport. So I tell people to hold off on your static, long-holding type stretching things for after your activity. When your tendons, your muscles are already heated up, they're already warmed up, they're now have some lactic acid that needs to cut, you know what I mean? Use kind of like bring your heart rate down and elongate those muscles, save those type of things for afterwards. So you don't want to go out onto the pickleball court and just like bend over and hang out there to stretch your hamstrings out or be pulling your heel towards your bottom to stretch your the classic warm-ups we've seen. Those are 100% the classic things, you know. And if that's your jam, then you could do that, but that can't be it. Maybe save that kind of stuff for for afterwards as you're cool down to bring your heart rate down. Um, but I would say doing some eccentric exercise, doing some eccentric loading of your muscles. So um, like slowly lowering. So let's say, let's say that you want to do, let's say you want to stretch out your calves. I tell people, go and find a ledge or something that you can stand on where you can nice and slowly lower your weight down through your heel. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Where your knee is straight and you're lowering your heel down. Like start to warm up your tendons that way where you're loading them with some weight, but you're elongating them. So that's one, that's one way. That's one start.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Extremely practical example because there's curbs in the parking spots over by RTs. So just a little more detail to this. Would you go dynamically down, uh back and down, like between the heels? Say I step both feet up, um, and then just pausing in the bottom and pausing at the top a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Yep. So I tell people you want to lower down over five seconds because people, their immediate thing they want to do, they want to pop up on the curb and then just lower a heel down. And then they just want to like kind of sit in that.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Stay there statically.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Yeah. But how I explain it is the the work is in the lowering. So that's the part that you should be focused on. It's not getting your heel down to the bottom, it's actually the work in the lowering.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

So, how slow can we go down when we do?

SPEAKER_00 15:09

How can you go?

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Yeah. And that five seconds is a great road.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

That's what I tell people because it's easy to remember. So just count five seconds as you're lowering your heel down to the bottom. You can pause there for another five seconds if you want to, and then come up at a normal pace.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

And if you get warmed up, you can even make that coming back up a little bit more ballistic, meaning we can kind of like, you know what I mean? We can pop back up to the back up on our toes again. Yep. So I'm doing my I'm doing my hands like I'm pretending my hands are my feet right now. Sorry as I'm explaining it, but No, it's it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

And from a repetition perspective, am I looking at doing like eight to ten reps, two sets, something like that?

SPEAKER_00 15:47

I I usually do multiples of fives and tens because they're easy to remember. But um, if you're a per if you're a person that goes by feels, then when you, you know, you might feel like, okay, I feel like heated up. I feel like I'm done with that one. Now I'm gonna move on to the next thing. Um, so those would be, and I and I just mentioned calves because the Achilles calf knees are are a big injury areas. So that's how I would start with loading.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

So we're gonna start with the lower legs first. Where do we go from there, actually?

SPEAKER_00 16:15

You don't have to start there, but I would just I love the lower legs. That's what hits the floor, right? That's what hits the floor. So start with the things that hit the floor. Um, and then we did kind of like we touched on this a little bit, but those side to side movements. So let's say that you rode your bike over to RTs or whatever, and you just kind of like got some blood flow to those big muscle groups. You got up on the curb and you're doing your heel lowering. And now the next thing I want you to do is you got to get your feet wide apart from each other and start to do some side to side. So here you might be doing kind of like those, I don't know what you call it, like the side lunge type things where like you're lowering into one leg and lowering into the other. You're gonna load those adductors. Okay. And then I also try to bring in that you can easily bring in your trunk here and do some trunk rotations. So I'm I'm doing some side lunges. Now I'm gonna start to reach opposite arm to inside of the opposite foot. And then as I come up, you know what I mean, and then switch the other side. So now I'm getting some trunk rotation in. I'm loading up those adductors, I'm doing some side to side. And then I also want you to be starting to do some ballistic movements. So you definitely want to have a warm-up where you're up on your toes. Low-hanging fruit, you can do jumping jacks. Nice jumping jacks, you're gonna be up on your toes. So now I'm loading my calves up and my knees up more in a way than I am when I'm doing pickleball because pickleball is gonna be these short jarring movements. So we want to do a little bit of some short jarring movements before we go out there on the pickleball court.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

So we're almost trying to mimic the sport. Yeah, we want to mimic it, but like maybe just pick one thing that you're mimicking at a time. Because I might be kind of like rabbit holing here a little bit. But what a lot of people do is they'll just go in and they'll just do um just small shots and they'll pick different lines. So like you start up like at the line where the kitchen is and you just kind of like do some small shots back and forth that way. Then what do you do? You you walk the next line back, and then you do for some there, and then you do from the service line, you go back and forth there, but that's not as quick moving and not up on the balls of your feet like you are when you're playing. So if you're doing that and you're going into playing, that's not going side to side, that's not being up on your toes, ready, where you're kind of like in this sports ready position.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Um Yeah, you're not fully prepared for the athleticism that you're about to experience or need to have. And it's probably we're not saying don't do the volley, but the vol the volley, that kind of like line progression is probably perfect right after we do this dynamic warm up.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

100%, because then you're already warmed up and you're ready. So, so so side to side movements, eccentric, slow loading, and then some ballistic type movements where you're up on your where you're up on your toes in a ready position. So let me I'll define that a little bit, but a ready position would be if you're flexing your hips a little bit, right? You're you're getting your center of gravity a little bit lower. That's for any sport, right? Even soggy watch soccer players too, right? Like you're gonna be you're gonna be like a little bit lower because it's easier for you to move in and out of that position. You're not standing upright at the pickleball court, right? Like your feet are apart, you're a little bit up on your toes, and then you're unlocked at the hips that you can move. So make sure that you're in that position in the warm-up. That's where like doing chunk rotations comes in, hinging at the hips. Like I like doing the good morning, you know, those good morning.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Yeah, just like a bodyweight good morning.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Yeah, almost like a non-weight deadlift, basically. So doing some good mornings and come up on your toes at the top of the good morning. We're actually gonna do that as part of our warm-up. So like you're going into your good morning instead of just coming right back up and being flat on your feet, come all the way up on your toes. So you're making it a a more kind of like ballistic movement, right? You're moving through all of those ranges that you're gonna need when you're out there on the water.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

We've used the word ballistic a lot too. And no, that's okay. I just want to kind of pause there for the for everyone's benefit. When we when we use that, terms that could be synonymous would be like quick speed, like springy movement, springing, like jumping. Yeah, yeah. And uh ballistic can be a scary word, but it actually is that preparation of like let's get ourselves ready for the quickness that we're gonna experience when we're you know playing where our body's just reacting.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Because that's where people get hurt, right? So if if if that scares you to even think about, then you I don't want to say you don't have any business to be on the pickleball court, but you may need to you may need to be modifying your warm-up, right? Because if it scares you to be jumping, but then when you are on the pickleball court, you're playing the sport, so you're not thinking about I should say, I'm just saying jumping. I know you're not really jumping, but you know what I mean? Like you're on the balls of your feet. So when you're playing a sport, you're not thinking about that, but your body is doing it. Yeah, and that's where people can get into trouble if they're not doing those movements outside of strictly being on the pickleball court, right? You're your your body adapts to stress. We might even have talked about that in the last podcast, but what stress you put on your body, your body is going to adapt to it. So if I want to build resiliency, resiliency is like your but your body's ability to adapt to whatever it is.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Whatever you get thrown your way.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Whatever you get thrown your way, like you need to be able to rebound, right? So um if you want your body to be able to to rebound from jumping and you might even be out there and kind of like trip a little bit or something like that. Like you need to be able you need to have resiliency to be able to like get back up and resume playing. Yeah. If you want to be able to do that, not be injured. So, you know, you you have to work your body and your muscles, your tendons in that way on the in-between times as well. Um, and then that way when you go out and play pickleball, oh, I accidentally like took a weird step in a weird direction. It's not gonna put you out for a month.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Your body knows how to handle it. It's the preparedness that you'll then experience on the courts if we're doing these things outside of uh being on the court. And um, but okay, so we're gonna do the eccentric heel drops, we're gonna move into some lateral movements out of the sagittal plane, we're gonna add some rotation to that. We're then gonna do the some sort of ballistic exercise, whether it's good mornings, extending up onto the ball of feet from the toes uh very quickly. Anything else as we round out the warm up?

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Yeah, like I said, like Low-hanging fruit jumping jacks. You're up on your toes. You can crisscross in between. You can get your arm movements in there. Like for a simple exercise, it can cover a lot of different things we just talked about. The old school jumping jacks.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's it's it all goes back to jumping jacks sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Sometimes.

Build Resilience With Strength Training

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Well, well, thank you for that breakdown. I think it's incredibly practical, practical, very doable. And I I'm not an avid pickleball player yet. I have uh aspirations that as my life slows down and you know, more time allows that I get into this sport. But I'm thinking for that person who's already in the sport, potentially playing three to five days a week, developing a repeatable warm-up like this that is five minutes, will just go a long way to them feeling better and preventing injury. 100%. So let's jump into how to stay healthy for the next 10 to 20 years, because what I find is that we have so many people drinking the Kool-Aid to strength training right now and getting involved in the fitness program that we offer here at Palmetto Bluff. And the main reason is they want to keep playing the games that they're playing today, whether that's golf or whether that's pickleball. So what physical qualities you've already mentioned a little bit on this, but what physical qualities should that individual be focused on?

SPEAKER_00 23:26

So strength training for sure. And part of the reason that I say that, I'm gonna I'm gonna use the word resilience a lot, but um, but strength training, increasing your muscle tone gives your body more shock absorption. And that's what you need when you're playing any sport.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

Tell us tell us more about muscle tone. Muscle tone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Remember that period of time where everybody was talking about Michelle Obama's arms?

SPEAKER_02 23:55

I do not. Please elaborate.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Well, there was a time period where people were talking about Michelle Obama's arms.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

That's pretty funny.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

It was when Barack Obama was president, you know, so then she obviously is in the spotlight and she's wearing some tank tops, and she had really cut arms. And so there's a period of time where everyone was like, we gotta start working our arms out. We want to have Michelle Obama arms.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

And develop some muscle tone.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

And develop some muscle tone. So um, so having you want to have good resting muscle tone so that you basically have shock absorption at your joints, right? So your muscles cross your joints, your muscles are the motor to what moves your joints. We know this about muscles, but muscles also have good shock absorption. So how that would play into pickleball would be let's say that um a person who maybe has been working on strength training, let's say for their lower body, and they've been working on squats and lunges and things like that that are gonna work um quad muscles and all those muscles that surround your knee, they're gonna be less likely to have a knee injury from like these fast moving things, these fast movements that you have on the pickleball court, because those increased tone and muscles is gonna take some of the shock and the friction away from the knee joints.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Yeah. So we can kind of disperse that force. So we're talking about force of like my foot is hitting the ground pretty quickly and hard because it's got all my body weight on it. So then where does that force go? It's gonna travel up the body. So if I'm landing really stiffly and I don't have a lot of tone in my muscles, then all of that load might go into my knee joint. And let's say that you have an old meniscus injury, or let's say you don't have a lot of cartilage in there. Um, and it could be this could be like a 30-year-old thing. Like it doesn't have to be something recent. All of that, all of that friction, all of that force is gonna go right through the knee.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

But if you develop resting tone and you have like more, I don't want to say thicker musculature, yeah, almost like a padding, um, then you're gonna absorb that shock through multiple tissues instead of it all kind of like congregating at that one, we can call it like your weak spot in that joint.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Yeah. I really appreciate that breakdown. That that helps the understanding of the interconnectedness of, you know, I go to someone who just comes off and gets a knee replacement. We're always told to strengthen the muscles around the joint. In this case of pickleball, we've got to develop the muscle tone around our our entire leg system so that no one joint is gonna take a beating.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Yeah. So that's, I mean, because not everybody thinks it's fun to strength train. I love strength training. I don't feel like the same person if I don't get strength training in during the week. But then there's some people who they just strength train because they don't want to get hurt during their that sport. And that's fine. But there's there's really great trainers here. This isn't a plug, like I don't get paid to tell people to like go and strength train, but there's really great trainers here in Palmetto Bluff that if you tell them, you know, pickleball is my main thing, I really want to, you know, develop strength so that I can do that for the next 50 years and not be hurt, they're gonna be able to give you great, very sport-specific exercises that you can do. And um, you know, that can make it more fun for you too. You know, if you're like, I know why that I'm doing this and I know this is for pickleball, and we can kind of focus on that. I don't have to like be in there doing crunches. Like, that's not what personal training is. So if you at the very least, like get with a trainer who can watch your movements so that you're doing them well and you know the purpose behind them, whatever you need to do to get in there, then you should be doing strength training. Um, and then aside from that, doing mobility training throughout the week, uh, whether you follow like an online program or you come in and do you guys have like simple strength stretching.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Yeah, so we have our our PB stretch class that's uh it's called PB Stretch and Restore right now. And as we expand, we're even gonna be offering additional classes that focus on soft tissue that where it's just I think you've made a good point here. We've got to figure out how to make it easy where we want to participate in these things and what's the motivation behind doing it. If you love strength training, that's great. No, I wouldn't say there's a ton of people out there who love mobility, but doing it like in a group and being able to focus on those things with our hyper ice guns, you know, we incorporate all the tools to help you be more prepared the next day, especially if you're doing the three to four hours of activity in a day.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Yeah. And a class is a really easy way to do that because you know, the last thing you might want to do is think about what do I do? Well, well, having somebody else just already have a plan in place and a structure for that class, and you don't have to do a lot of thinking. You can just show up and they're telling you what to do. I personally think it's easier to do that. So I would say that. And then you have like some count accountability too, right? I mean, if you have friends that are going to that class, then you know, they might they may notice if you're not there. So it helps you to stay accountable to just get it done. Um, and then I would say speed work would be something that I would work on. And that could be that's definitely I would say best done with a trainer at the very least. Like you should do that a couple of times with somebody who knows what they're doing so that you don't hurt yourself, right? So that could be speed work with footwork, like ladder drill. Yeah, agility ladder type stuff where you're up on your toes and you're moving really quickly beyond just your warm-up, right? So, like in between, you should be doing that kind of stuff. Really quick arm drills. Like I've seen uh some people using the blaze pods and you know, or even just like I use catching drills with people sometimes. In my office, I have different weighted balls and I'll throw them at people and they have to catch them at different angles that I have to anticipate, you know, different, different loads and how you know the speed's gonna change and things like that. And so that works on how quickly are you moving your arm in all different directions. So things like that, that would be good things to work on so that you're not just doing them when you get out there to the pickleball court. Um, and then we talked about this already, but eccentric loading, and that could be a good active recovery day too.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

So when we're in the gym, uh give us an example of some eccentric loading that someone could do. Yeah.

Mobility Recovery And Speed Work

SPEAKER_00 30:06

So one of my favorites is doing a Jefferson curl. Do you know the Jefferson curl? Yeah. So if you're somebody that's tight, you wouldn't even need to stand on a step. But just taking a, you could either take a medicine ball and cross it over your chest, and you're just doing a slow roll down with your trunk, basically. So like my chin tucks down first, and then the rest of my body follows. So like that one vertebrae at a time, rolling all the way down towards your toes, holding a weight. So it's kind of like your your head is following the weight. So you're going into this like really nice deep forward fold. But think about what we talked about where people's injuries are and those all being these posterior chain, you know, calf, hamstring, peraspinals. Well, when you're going into a Jefferson curl, what are you slowly loading and elongating?

SPEAKER_02 30:52

Your spine.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

The whole posterior chain. So um, so that's one of my that's one of my favorites to do because that posterior chain is what's holding you up in an athletic position. Think about it. So if you're hinged at your hips, your knees are a little bit bent, you're up on the balls of your toes, that's your whole posterior chain that's working the whole entire time. So you can really show it some love by doing some slow eccentrics like the Jefferson curl where you're slowly curling down towards your toes. You've deadlifts. I love some like slow loading deadlifts. Um, those are one of my favorites to do as well.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Like an RDL nice and slow.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Yeah, just nice and slow, which again is it's still posterior chain, but it's a little bit different. It's gonna focus a little bit more on hamstrings, right? And you can even make it more focused on calves as well, um, and less in the in the spine because you're not, you know, yeah, bending the opposite direction. Those are those are my those are my favorite eccentrics.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

I appreciate those examples, especially the Jefferson curl because we've been so kind of mesmerized to always keep our back completely flat because we get scared, or we've, you know, we've had situations where we didn't keep our body in a stable midline position and and it did cause injury, but doing that under a controlled load, uh it makes a ton of sense of how that could translate to pickleball.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

For sure. Because you may, you know, you may when do people get hurt? It's not always like we in the middle of the sport, it's like I went to go and pick up the pickleball off the ground. Yeah. You know, and that's when it gave out. So if you're, you know, so uh to to your point, if all you're doing is ever hip hinging, there's gonna be points in time where you do need you where you do round your back out to do something mundane. Um, and you want so you want to be able to train your body that it can do that and show that it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

Yeah. I almost that triggers to me like sometimes you gotta eat unhealthy food so that you know when you're able to uh what you're able to handle. You know, I've I see that as a big belief uh from the perspective of being truly healthy. You can have something unhealthy.

SPEAKER_00 32:46

That's what I use on my kids. I'm like, yeah, you can eat that piece of cake. Let's see how you feel tomorrow when you have that test.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

Yeah, we'll see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

That's not what you mean, but that's where my head's.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

No, I like it. Uh well, actually, before we wrap up, let's uh just make this really simple for everyone listening who wants to still be playing pickleball for at 75, 80 years old, 90. What are the three main things to summarize?

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Okay. So number one, take some current inventory. So what I mean by that is if you need to journal it, if you need to put it in your phone, take some current inventory. How, how often am I really, how often am I truly playing a sport? So that's not even just pickleball. Like, how often am I playing golf? How often am I playing pickleball? How you know, you might be going out and just hitting nine holes every once in a while, or just going out and you know, putting whatever, and you're like, oh, I'm not really playing a sport, but you are so take some true inventory. Um, how am I feeling after I do that activity? How did I feel going into that activity? Did I take Advil in order to play? Um, how much water am I really drinking? Am I doing electrolytes? How did I sleep? I actually write that kind of stuff down in my planner. So it helps me. I look ahead at the week so that I can plan out what I want to do during the week. So I know right now I'm training for a marathon. I want to run three days a week. And so the only way I can do that is I put it down in my planner. I want to have strength training days. So I need to have my running days not be consecutive. Where can I fit in the strength training amongst the other things I have going on? And and you guys do too, right? You have people that are coming in town, family that are coming in town, everyone's coming in town right now because it's really beautiful weather.

SPEAKER_02 34:29

How are you training for a marathon? You have three kids and you run a business and and you you do podcasts for Pumidable occasionally too.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Well, once every four years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

So taking inventory.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

You have to take inventory. And that's really the only way that you can do that because you got to be a good steward of your time and you got to be a good steward of your body. And if you don't know what you truly are doing, then you can't really be a good steward of those things. So even if it's like at the at the top of the of each week, or even if you just want to do it at the top of the month, kind of if you can, kind of plan out some of those things ahead of time a little bit, right? Um, so that way you can get a you can get a true look of what your body needs. Because you might actually be doing better at strength training than you think, or you might actually be doing more mobility things than you think, or you might look at your schedule and be like, man, I have not had a true recovery day in like five months. No wonder my body feels like crap, you know? And so, so start taking some true inventory, even if it's just like you're making some notes on your phone about the activities that you did that week. I don't have, I don't know if you have any apps or anything that you use. My Garmin's kind of helpful for some of those things as well because it tells me like my sleep score. I don't know how legit that is, but I listen to it a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

Tons of tracking tools out there that can help with this this first step.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

So, number one, get take some inventory, some personal inventory so that you know what you need or what you need to get rid of. Number two, start doing strength training. If you're not doing strength training, start doing strength training. If you are strength training, then good job. Are you also doing mobility training? Um, so so make sure, so make sure you know where you're at. Start doing strength training or develop your strength training to fit the sport that you want to play. And then make sure that you're doing mobility slash active recovery day. Those are my three.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

I love it. Yeah, and it you've you've kind of added some nice insight into how if you're already that person who's doing three days a week of strength training, but you're a pickleball player, whether it's talking with your trainer or looking at your own routine, maybe adding some of the hand coordination quickness drills, the ladder drills, things like that, um, to be a little bit more specific with what that strength looks like, the eccentric loading. Um, and yeah, as far as the mobility front goes, that and recovery, that is just gonna be a front that if you're a member here at Pull Metal Bluff, we are gonna continue to push the envelope on ensuring that there's opportunities for that to be a lot easier for you to do in a group setting.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

So sure.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Outstanding, Ashley. This has been a lot of fun. I I don't know why we waited like two and a half years to there's just so many good people to talk to. You know, you're just helping too many people on property right now that I had to have have someone book you today to get you in here. It was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

I thought it worked out.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Yeah. Well, uh, before we wrap up, just want to thank you for all the work you're doing with our members and uh just our partnership here at Pomodle Bluff. Uh, we're excited to be in our new facility soon with you uh continuing your uh consultations with everyone who needs it here on property.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

Yeah. Uh it's been a minute, so I'd love to ask you the final question. What does wellness mean to you?

Three Rules To Play For Life

SPEAKER_00 37:33

I wanted to make sure I had a different answer than last time, but different season of life. It's been 10 years since I did this last podcast. So wellness to me means I'm taking care of my body now so that when something fun comes up, my answer can be when and not can I do that?

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Thanks, Ashley.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

When are we doing the fun thing?

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Yeah, when's it happening?

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Yeah.

Emotional Prevention And Weekly Momentum

Share The Episode And Closing

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Well, this has been so fun. I'm gonna let you get over and set up for our workshop. And uh, listeners, you can hang out with me for a few more minutes and get some healthy momentum for the rest of your week. That conversation with our doctor of physical therapy, Ashley, was a reminder of something simple but powerful. Injury prevention isn't complicated, it's consistent. Strength, mobility, intentional work done over time. But it got me thinking, we treat physical prevention like a priority, why not emotional prevention? The same way we build strength and mobility to protect our body, we have to build space and awareness to protect our mind. I think a lot of folks are quick to follow a plan. I know I am. As long as that plan is including the avoidance of physical pain. But when it comes to a plan around emotional health, we usually don't have one. We often just react when things get hard. What if we train for that too? For me, this is real right now. I've been pouring into others a lot this past year. Serving, showing up, giving. And I can feel the need right now to step back, to slow down, to be present again, the first step of change. And honestly, to rebuild in a quieter way. For me, this isn't easy. And if you're anything like me, I I think you can agree that when your life is full of relationships and purpose, pulling back can feel wrong. But I'm realizing this is the work, this is the emotional prevention, creating space now so I'm ready for what's next. So for your momentum for this week, I want to remind you that it's important that you don't wait for burnout, stress, or overwhelm to force a reset. Build it now, create margin in your life, protect your energy, and train your emotional health the same way you train your body on purpose. Because prevention, physically or emotionally, is always easier than recovery. That brings us to the end of our podcast today. I want to thank you so much for joining the conversation. If there is a pickleball lover in your network of relationships, I encourage you to share this episode with them. And if you need more guidance on warmups, prevention, our team is on site here to help you answer any questions and help you develop a quick plan for that warm-up or cool down as needed. We're looking forward to having you back with us next week. And remember to actively participate in life on your terms.