MUSCLE BALANCE WORK CAN HELP HIP PAIN IN PICKLEBALL
by Keith Phillips, NASM-CPT, PES, SFC, OTA, Verimax certified
How Muscle Balance Work Helps Hip Pain in Pickleball
Muscle balance work is, through assessing posture, understanding which muscles of the body are overworked (short/tightened) and underworked (long/loose). These abnormal muscle lengths create pushing and pulling of tissue which can lead to tightness, pain, and injury.
My wife and I are about as addicted to pickleball as anyone. But the reality of playing a fast paced game as an older adult (I am 56) brings with it aches and pains up and down my body.
As a trainer, I have been able to improve plantar fasciitis, knee inflammation (I hit my paddle on my right knee cap) and shoulder impingement. But the final ache proved to be more elusive to solve: tendon strains along my pelvis.
I am a mobile pickleball player. I take pride in being able to cover a wide swath of court quickly. But this also opens me up to injury. I was aware that my tendon strains were showing up in two areas: 1) where shorter hip rotator muscles attached to the base of my pelvis (east to west shuffling and also rotating), and 2) where my hamstrings attach to my pelvis (acceleration to the net). It finally occurred to me that there were muscle imbalances present.
1. Strengthening of Weak Hip Muscles
First, I began strengthening my hip area muscles I believed to be weak: glutes, hamstrings, and core.
Exercises: (at medium speed, or with a 4/2/1 eccentric/isometric/concentric cadence)
1 Kickbacks: Standing, with resistance attached to your ankle, move straight leg back to contract glute muscles. I used ankle straps attached to a cable machine at the gym. At home, an anchored 80 inch band with a carabiner attached to your shoe string will work. (2 sets of 10)
2 Abductor Leg Raise: Raise leg to the side with attached ankle resistance.
3 Standing Adductor Crossover (with resistance at the ankle, raise a bent knee across supporting leg to contract adductors).
4 Monster Walk (attach a mini band around legs above knees and walk laterally, optional additional mini band at ankles) for shuffling along the kitchen line.
5 Alternating Side Lunges (add paddle strokes): Keep knees over 2nd/3rd toes.
2. Focusing on Basic Body Movements
Secondly, I finally realized that I needed to focus on normal hip movement to keep my hips activated and ready to go on a daily basis. If you strength train slowly in the gym without considering faster movements, are you ready for explosive pickelball movements? The result: tendon strain and general soreness.
Now I prepare for pickleball by including these basic warmup movements:
1 Slow walking first, then
2 Faster walking, then
3 Gentle jogging, and ending with
4 (Optional) short sprints and side shuffle to simulate explosive movements (be careful here). I take my time and listen to my body in this sequence, pacing myself. This builds strength and support in a natural way.
3 Relaxation Visualization
But the most interesting and perhaps effective technique was relaxation visualization for muscles in the upper leg (hip flexors in front, and hamstrings in back). Movement is a balance of contraction and relaxation. When contraction/relaxation balances get out of whack, muscle imbalances can occur. When overactive muscles get tight, they pull on their weaker antagonistic muscles and respective tendons (the hams). My tight hip flexors in front, I believe, were stretching the weak hams in back, setting up the rear tendons for excess pulling.
The easy and effective solution was:
Relaxation Visualization: keeping the hip flexors and hams relaxed enough on the pickleball court to keep a healthy balance between contraction and relaxation. With less pulling, the strain symptoms began to dissolve rather quickly. Also, it's important to improve:
Other Important Considerations
1 Core strength to take the burden off the lower back. A tight back and tight hip flexors usually go together. (hand resisted double crunches, swiss ball crunches, planks (optional single leg), side planks, standing or lying bicycle crunches, lying leg raises, single leg balance work).
2 Active stretching (1-2 second stretches) before and after any activity. Active stretches won't slow you down. (Some of my favorite hip related stretches: Standing toe touches, Figure 4's, pigeon stretch, standing hamstring stretch, kneeling (front leg) hip flexor stretch).
3 Dynamic Stretch Warmup: Legs: Knee to Chest, Rotating side lunges, Grass catchers, Russian walks, Frankensteins, Power skips (vertical and horizontal), Fast skips, Backward skips, Shuffle, Buttkickers, Carioca, Tapioca; Arms: Bodyweight overhead presses, Pec circles, Arm swings in all 3 planes, External and Internal shoulder rotations, Banded front press.
Be careful to never stretch in the direction of a strain. I stay in a 1 or 2 pain level out of 10 when working a strained area. Ice an area to keep inflammation down, and to keep tissues in their normal positions is a better idea.
Feel free to contact me for a simple assessment to understand any muscle imbalances you may have to find tight, overactive muscle, and weak, underactive muscles.
It feels great to be able to play much more now, see pickleball friends, and it lets the wife be more active also.
Keith Phillips is a personal and sports performance trainer from Atlanta, GA. He currently teaches clients and a stretch class at Emery Fit in Alpharetta, GA
