The Hidden Demands of Pickleball

I was introduced to pickleball two years ago. Coming from a tennis background, it felt convenient to play since the court was inside the gym, all I had to do was book it through the app, and the sport itself looked simple enough. But despite being invited many times, I kept refusing. I thought pickleball wasn’t challenging enough — at least not compared to tennis. One day, I eventually agreed to play. The game was easy to pick up because of my racquet-sport foundation, and I naturally enjoyed the competitive aspect. So I started playing more often. But something surprising happened: I began developing lower-back discomfort that didn’t make sense. It wasn’t just normal soreness — it lingered. It was unusual because I had spent my whole life playing tennis, training consistently, and lifting intelligently in the gym. Something didn’t add up.

That’s when my curiosity took over. I always try to understand things through biomechanics, physics, and structure — the layers that most people overlook because they’re focused only on the game itself. And when you look at pickleball from the outside, it appears to be easy, light, and accessible to all ages. And it is. That’s part of what makes the sport beautiful. But what most people don’t realize is that while it is extremely easy to start, it becomes much harder on the body as your level improves.

The more your game develops, the faster the reaction time becomes. You begin demanding more from your body — quicker changes of direction, sharper rotations, tense accelerations, sudden decelerations, unplanned reaches, stretches, lunges, and wrist-dominant shots. This is where injuries begin to show, especially in people who are not paying enough attention to their physical preparation. And here is where something becomes very clear: most players never learned footwork mechanics. They use big, inefficient steps that put them in awkward positions. Beginners do this, intermediates do this, and even some advanced players continue carrying these habits because they were never corrected early. Proper footwork — small lunges, controlled shuffles, understanding when and why to split-step, knowing when to pivot versus when to crossover, managing deceleration patterns so the body can stop safely after acceleration — is one of the biggest missing links in most players’ development. People spend time practicing shots, but almost no time learning how to move between those shots, which is ironic because injuries happen more often during movement than during the hit itself. Most players work on explosiveness but never train the deceleration phase, which is the exact moment where most knee, hip, and lower-back issues appear.

I started noticing the same pattern in many players: elbow pain, wrist irritation, shoulder discomfort, knee pain, lower-back issues, and foot or ankle strain. And a huge portion of this comes from technique and grip mechanics. Most recreational players use the wrong grip for the wrong shot, especially during fast reactions at the kitchen line. They tense the wrist, squeeze the handle too tightly, or flick in positions that force the tendons to absorb stress they are not built for. This is why tennis elbow is so common in pickleball. And when people sit at a desk most of the day with weak core activation and limited hip mobility, they create an even worse scenario: pickleball requires micro-rotations, not full hip rotations like tennis. When someone has tight hips, weak deep core muscles, and limited mobility, the lower back becomes the default engine — and eventually, the default victim.

That’s what pushed me to break down pickleball from a biomechanics perspective. I wanted to understand which muscles are involved in each stroke, which movements carry the most risk, and why people were getting injured so easily in a sport that appears harmless at first glance. When you break the game down, you see patterns: the forearm flexors and extensors constantly loaded in hand-dominant strokes, the rotator cuff stabilizing sudden reactive movements, the hips and glutes creating power in a very small court, the lower back absorbing rotational forces when players don’t use their legs properly, and the knees handling constant micro-adjustments because of the stop-start nature of the game.

Once I identified the mechanics, the solution became clear. You cannot prepare for pickleball only by playing pickleball. That is the fastest way to overload the same joints repeatedly without giving them the structural support they need. First, the muscles involved must be strengthened in their ideal biomechanical environment — meaning isolated, aligned, and trained according to their anatomical function. Then the training must evolve into sport-specific exercises, movements that mimic the way you react, rotate, reach, and accelerate on the court. Once that foundation is established, injury-prevention exercises must be added — controlled patterns that replicate common pickleball stresses so the body can tolerate them safely during real play.

Another layer many players overlook is footwear and surface. Wearing the wrong shoes on the wrong surface is responsible for countless ankle sprains, hip irritations, and even knee injuries. Pickleball requires abrupt direction changes, and if your shoes are built for running — not lateral movement — you are one bad step away from a preventable injury. And this connects directly to recovery habits. Too many players go from zero to one hundred without warming up properly: no joint fluid circulation, no tendon activation, no dynamic priming. They walk onto the court cold, start playing immediately, and then wonder why their body breaks down. Hydration, tendon warm-up, core engagement, and basic mobility drills take minutes but prevent months of unnecessary pain.

This whole approach becomes even more powerful when combined with a basic understanding of biomechanics. Players quickly begin noticing things not only in themselves, but in their opponents — how someone moves, where their shot choice comes from, which muscle groups they rely on more than they should, and where their technical weaknesses might be. When you understand mechanics, you see patterns on the court that others miss. You can predict, analyze, and adapt — which dramatically improves strategy and shot selection. Knowledge of the body transforms knowledge of the game.

But there is another layer people forget. Strength training is only beneficial when the exercises themselves are properly selected. Many people hear “work out to prevent injuries,” but without guidance they walk into the gym and choose exercises that can cause injuries. This is why I always emphasize SmartTraining365’s philosophy: exercise selection is everything. You can have good intentions and still harm your body if you choose movements that overload the wrong joints, use poor alignment, or ignore the natural biomechanics of your muscles.

Pickleball is no different from any sport: if you want to perform well and stay healthy long term, you need an intelligent, structured training plan. One that respects your anatomy, protects your joints, and prepares your body for the real demands of the game. Relying only on pickleball to keep you in shape is a mistake that will catch up sooner or later. I’ve seen it many times. And although I experienced some of those issues myself, I knew how to reverse them because I understood what needed to be done. But imagine someone who doesn’t have this background, who only plays and never trains — the outcome is predictable.

If you want to go deeper into the biomechanics, the stroke breakdown, the injury-prevention approach, and the full training system I built for this sport, I created an online course called Beyond Pickleball that demonstrates every exercise, every cue, and every movement step by step so you can follow along even if you don’t have a background in biomechanics. These programs are used by players all over the world because the principles come from research, physics, and real structural science — not guesswork.

I’m sharing all this because I’m deeply involved in the sport now, and I want players to enjoy pickleball for years without compromising their health. Once you understand the mechanics behind the game and the biomechanics behind the exercises, everything becomes clearer. And once you apply that knowledge, you protect your body, elevate your performance, and give yourself the freedom to enjoy this sport at any age — pain-free, confident, and strong..

Written By Moe Larbi
 Founder of SmartTraining365 & Ratel Mentality
Sports Performance Coach
 Helping athletes and everyday lifters train smarter, safer, faster, and stronger under real-world conditions.