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The podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. We are here to help you achieve your pickleball goals, with a focus on the mental part of your game. Our mission is to share with you a positive and more healthy way of engaging with pickleball. Together let’s forge a stronger relationship with the sport we all love. With the added benefit of playing better pickleball too. No matter what you are trying to accomplish in your pickleball journey, Pickleball Therapy is here to encourage and support you.
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your Pickleball improvement. Hope you're doing well out there. This is a special episode of the podcast. In this episode, we're gonna talk about physical injury. I'm gonna share with you our personal story, and then we're gonna talk about some concepts involving taking care of our body and preventing or reducing the chance that we're gonna get injured,
potentially get injured in the future. As we get into the podcast, wanna let you know that one of the most important things that you can do to take care of your body is wear the right shoes, shoes that are designed for the sport. Listen, if you're wearing tennis shoes, racketball shoes, something like that, you know, a, a shoe that's designed for lateral movement,
that's probably gonna be fine. But if you're not sure whether the shoes you're wearing are right for the sport you're playing, we wear this. We wear a shoe that's designed specifically for Pickleball. It's a company that only makes Pickleball shoes. They're all in on Pickleball. It's the tie roll shoe, and we're big fans of it. So if you wanna check out tie roll shoes,
you can use the Code BP as in Better Pickleball, BP 10 at checkout. So check those out at tyro and you can always go to better Pickleball dot com and click on the resources tab and you'll see everything that we use. If it's on there, it's something that we use or have used and can vet, can vet, right? Can say we,
we stand behind that. So Tyro is a company that we are really happy to be associated with. Alright, let's lemme tell you my story and then we can go from there. So I have been, I have been boxing for a little bit now, right? For like three weeks or so. And I, I went to the, near my house.
They had a, a, a, a class that you could join and check it out. And I had done it a little bit before, just executive boxing, like, you know, against the bag and, and more for actually all for conditioning. I'm not, not currently planning on getting into the ring and getting my bell rung or ringing anybody's bell,
but for exercise and do something different and focus and things like that. And, and I've, I've found a lot of benefit in boxing. I enjoy the activity, I enjoy the mental part of it, the focus. And, you know, I've, I'm learning something new, so it's, that's always fun. But I went in on whatever day it was a few days ago,
and I, I have now, I have the straps. I go around my hands so I can punch a little bit harder. I have gloves so I can punch a little bit harder. And I got a little carried away and doing some of the, some hooks, which are, you know, it's, it's a not a, it's not a motion that I'm com that I'm used to doing,
right? It's something new for me. And we're gonna talk about that in a second. 'cause that's really important to understand whenever you're getting into some activity or learning some new way of doing something. So I was, I was doing hooks and I was really, I was going hard at the back and I started feeling a little bit sore afterwards, but I didn't think much of it.
And then on Friday morning I was gonna go play Pickleball with some friends and we needed some footage for video. So CG asked me to film some footage on some surfs. And so I hadn't warmed up yet. It was seven in the morning, we're playing at seven 30, and I started doing these serves. And then I did a kind of a crazy serve as a B roll for one of the things.
And I was like, oh man, that hurt. So now I have an injured shoulder, good news is my right shoulder, left shoulder's pretty good, but the right shoulder is, is kind of a little bit outta whack. So now I gotta go into, you know, taking care of it, you know, rest it, things like that.
So let's talk about, you know, it made me think about injury, right? I'm doing a new activity, new movements, new techniques, and I'm not used to using muscles that I haven't probably used in that way in a long time. Not probably, I know I haven't used so that way in a long time. So I want, it got me think about injury and,
and you know, I know that, that y'all reach out about injuries that you've sustained from time to time. And so I thought, well, let's talk about injury and, and you know, and, and kind of what can happen to us as Pickleball players that causes us to suffer injury. And then maybe some ways that we can avoid that. So one,
one area that's that's really common, we see injuries is when we're using muscles that we don't regularly use. So let's say you don't come from a racket sports background or a paddle sports background, and you, you're playing Pickleball six days a week, right? You know, you have the, the muscles are mu you're using muscles in ways that you probably have never used them.
And so, you know, you're going to put attacks on those muscles if you're gonna be playing all the time and you're using small muscles, the, the forearm muscles, even though our for don't look that small relatively speaking com, you know, relative to other muscles in our body, like our, you know, our, our, our thigh muscles,
our shoulder muscles, our biceps and triceps, our forearm muscles are pretty small. So if you're not used to racket sport and all of a sudden you're just, you know, going out there and banging balls around for, you know, 2, 3, 4 hours at a time, that is going to put a toll on your, on your arms, on and on your muscles.
So just be aware of that. Same thing with your legs, you know, if you're not used to lateral movement, for instance, you know who moves laterally around their house. Nobody does. And so you're on a Pickleball court, all of a sudden you're having to move laterally, shuffle, step, shuffle, step, step, you know, get your balance,
things like that, that can put a lot of, a lot of wear and tear on your muscles, but also on your joints, right? On your, on your knees, on your ankles, on your hips. And so, you know, understand that that's a possibility. Related to that is, you know, if you have issues with your technique,
right? So say that you're really swinging that paddle around, that paddle's flying all over the place when you're playing, you are probably putting extra torque, extra burden on your muscles, just like I did in box it, right? So in boxing, a hook is a, is a, is a punch where you take your elbow and you flare it out to the side,
and then you come from the side into the back, puts a lot of, a lot of burden on your shoulder because you're coming at it from a really kind of a weak shoulder position compared to like a normal punch where you just punch straight away the shoulder's more, you know, it's, it's more protected there. And so a hook is a technique that I don't have ma I haven't mastered yet.
I'm using it is both of 'em, right? It's a, it's a double whammy. It's, I'm using muscles that I haven't used in that way, you know, bringing like a roundhouse around with my, my fist. And I, you know, I'm probably not that versed in the technique yet, right? In terms of bracing my shoulder as I make contact with the bag.
So those two things combined resulted in me now being sidelined from boxing for a couple of weeks. Fortunately, I guess in timing wise, Jill and I are gonna be outta town for a week. So, you know, it's not gonna affect my training that much. But nonetheless, my shoulder, you know, my shoulders are being impacted by straining muscles that I haven't used,
plus improper technique. So if you're feeling pain in any part of your body, consider you ask yourself, is this a muscle or an area that I haven't really used that much? And maybe that's part of it. And then secondly, maybe I need to check my technique. You can video yourself. You know, I've recommended to several folks who've reached out about mostly it's shoulder and elbow injury,
a pain that they're having to film themselves and take it to their local, you know, physical therapist or their physician, you know, healthcare provider who's local, who can watch and take your paddle with you, right? Go see them, show them the video of what you're doing, simulate the, the, the motion with them. And they may have an idea as to how that's impacting your elbow,
your wrist, your shoulder or even your, your, your legs or your, your ankles and knees on your footwork. So that's a good technique to kind of figure that out. So let's talk about a couple few things that you can do to minimize the chances of injury. Number one, and this is, it is patently obvious, right? But I know we don't do it enough.
And frankly, I I was guilty of it on Friday, right when I went in, even though I wasn't playing yet, I, I was using my body aggressively without having warmed it up. So the first thing you gotta do is just take a min, take a few minutes, 2, 3, 4 minutes, warm your body up. And that literally means, I know we use the term warm up all the time,
but that's literally what you're doing is you're bringing your muscles up to temperature, right? Just bringing 'em up to like a temperature that they're more pliable, they're more ready to do your, do what you want 'em to do. A, a, a sign of being warmed up is just a, a slight sweat. You don't have to be like tripping,
but you know, you have a light little sheen on your, on your skin. That means that your body is warmed up and you're probably going to, you're, you're, you're better ready to do what you want to do physically, and you're reducing the chances that you're going to have a potential injury. And then the other, the second thing is listen to your body.
You know, listen to small things. Don't wait until you're sidelined. You know, if you're, if you're playing and all of a sudden something doesn't feel right, that's your body saying, Hey, maybe you gotta check, check yourself on that. And so maybe stop doing that thing that you're doing, right? Whether it's using your wrist to hit,
you know, to swing the paddle or the way you're moving, whatever it is, you know, check yourself on that and listen to your body sooner rather Than later before you get injured. And then the last thing is, you know, you, it really behooves us to spend some time strengthening those, strengthening those parts of your, you know, strengthening those parts of your body that you're want to use to play Pickleball,
right? That you want to use to move around the court that you want to use to swing the paddle. Spending some time off court, strengthening them, stretching them, you know, working them right? Getting them ready to do the job is going to plea dividends because you reduce a chance of injury. But the other thing too is you're gonna play better,
right? You're gonna be in better shape in terms of your paddle movement, your physical movement of your body with your feet and your, and your legs. And so spend some time off court. Strengthening is a really way to do it. If you're a member of the Pickleball system, you have an athletic pillar that includes a lot of good information in there that you can use that's Pickleball specific that you can use to get your body in,
in a better shape if you're not a member of the Pickleball system, or even if you're a member of the Pickleball system and you just want something very focused for the next eight weeks, and you can do it longer, but it's an eight week challenge. There's an eight week challenge that we have. You can go to better Pickleball, look at the classes,
find CJ's eight week challenge in there. It's all very Pickleball specific. I can tell you that the members of our team who have been doing a team challenge with that have really benefited from the course. I think they were pleasantly surprised at how, in a good way, how challenging it was for them, right? How it was, it, it,
it made them work differently than what they've used to have been doing. And these are folks who regularly do other things, you know, whether it's Pilates and things like that. But this program is designed around Pickleball. So check that out. And it might be a good resource for you if you're not in the system and don't wanna the eight week challenge.
You can always surf YouTube and, and, and find some stuff that might help you out. But key is this. Try and do something, right? Even if it's, you know, two minutes a day, that's fine. I I, I heard a content creator who was talking about pushups, and it was interesting the way he talked about it.
'cause he, he was saying, you know, like if you do, and I'm not telling you to do pushups, right? But just the idea that if you, if you did 10 pushups, right, you would think 10 pushups, eh, what's the point of that, right? But then he's like, well, let's say you do 10 pushups today and 10 pushups tomorrow and 10 pushups the next day,
at the end of the, at the end of the year, you've done 3,600 roughly pushups, right? That's a lot of pushups better than zero. And so think about that in terms of your, your body, you know, maybe it's squat 10 times, you know, get or get stand up and down. You know, stand up and sit down in a chair from a chair 10 times,
okay? Better than doing nothing in terms of getting your body ready. And the more you strengthen your body and get it ready, the more resistant it is to injuries. And so that's the, that's the advice and that's coming from the heart for me this week, because I am currently, like I said, a little bit injured and look forward to recovering my shoulder completely over the next Week or so,
hopefully, or a couple of weeks, even though these injuries can last a little bit longer. But a little bit, a little of what the, the old saying, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure definitely applies to our Pickleball. Let's make sure that we protect our bodies so that we can play Pickleball as long as we want to,
and play as frequently and as many hours as possible by protecting our body on the front end. Before we go, I'd be remiss not to mention that we have our upcoming Winmore series workshop in March. If you're on our email list, you've already probably received a notification by the time this episode goes live. But if you're, if you're on the email list,
you're gonna get invited to the workshop. It's a really good opportunity for you to learn more about Pickleball, about, you know, how to win more games, certainly, and also about the Pickleball system, so that if you're interested in taking that big next step in your Pickleball journey, you can join CJME inside the Pickleball system. As always, if you enjoyed this week's podcast,
please share it with your friends. Remember, if you enjoyed the podcast, they probably will too. Particularly if you have a friend who's going through an injury. This podcast might make them feel a little bit better about theirs, knowing that I myself have one too. I'll be, have a great week and we'll see you for our regular podcast this Friday.