You’ve found your new obsession: pickleball. You play three times a week. Then four. Then five. You cancel plans to squeeze in one more game. You’ve never felt more alive, until your elbow starts screaming, your knee swells after every match, or your shoulder aches so badly you can’t serve without wincing. Here’s the truth: pickleball is amazing for your fitness, your social life, and your competitive spirit, but without the right support off the court, it’s quietly setting you up for injury. The good news? You don’t have to quit. You just need to add three key categories of training to your weekly routine.
Here are the top three things every pickleball player needs to stay pain-free and play longer:
• Build the joint stability and muscle control your body needs to handle explosive movements, repetitive serves, and lateral lunges without breaking down.
• Restore the range of motion pickleball takes away (especially in your shoulders, hips, and ankles) to prevent compensation patterns and keep your joints healthy.
• Give your body the rest, nutrition, and tissue care it needs to adapt, get stronger, and show up ready to play your best every time you step on the court.
Here’s what we see at Maven Physical Therapy over and over again: someone discovers pickleball, gets hooked, plays 3–5 times per week, and feels great… until they don’t. Their elbow starts aching (lateral epicondylitis), their knee swells, they tweak their ankle, or their shoulder – especially if they’ve had rotator cuff problems before – starts screaming during serves.
What’s happening? Pickleball is repetitive, one-sided, and explosive. Without building the strength to stabilize your joints, restoring the mobility you lose after every match, and giving your body the recovery it needs, you get injured, and then you can’t play at all.
Here’s the real solution: build your tissue capacity so your body can tolerate the demands of pickleball without breaking down.
If your elbow hurts every time you play, it’s not because you love pickleball too much, it’s because your elbow, wrist, forearm, and shoulder aren’t strong or mobile enough to handle the repetitive stress. The answer is not to play less pickleball. The answer is to strengthen the tissues getting overloaded, restore the mobility you’re losing, and give your body the recovery it needs to adapt.
When you do that, you’re building the capacity to play MORE pickleball, pain-free, for years to come.
If you incorporate strength training, mobility training, and recovery into your weekly routine, you will play better, and with more power, more control, and more endurance. This also means that you can play MORE pickleball, not less.
And by prioritizing improved strength and mobility, you’re also choosing to invest in your physical longevity so that you can live life to the fullest for as long as possible.
Ready to play more pickleball with less pain? You don’t need to overhaul your entire routine, you just need the right plan.
That’s exactly what we do at Maven Physical Therapy & Performance Training. We work with pickleball players to design personalized training plans that address specific weaknesses, restore mobility, and build the strength your joints need to stay healthy and pain-free.
Whether you’re dealing with elbow pain, knee issues, shoulder discomfort, or you simply want to prevent injuries before they start, we can help you get back on the court — and stay there.
Let’s keep you playing the game you love, stronger and pain-free. Contact us for a consultation!
Speak to one of our team members and book an appointment
