Pickleball Knee Pain: What's Really Causing It And How To Fix It

If you wear a knee brace, knee tape, any kind of knee support, compression sleeve even, while you play games like pickleball or tennis, I'm talking to you. I'm Dr. Christina the Pickie PT and today I want to talk to you about why you're having knee pain while playing your favorite games such as pickleball or tennis and what you can do to prevent that or reduce it in the moment. So I am a doctor of physical therapy. I'm an orthopedic specialist and I also like to play pickleball. I noticed that a lot of folks out on the court will be wearing knee braces or tape or like I said compression sleeves in order to make their pain less as they play and be able to play for longer. But you could actually just make small habit changes as you're playing and do small exercises in order to reduce your risk of injury and this will increase the longevity of your ability to play much longer than just wearing a brace or a support sleeve. So let's go ahead and talk about it. So let's talk about your posture and how you move while you're playing. The number one issue that I hear from people is either they're having front of knee pain or outside of knee pain as they're playing and there's simple movement changes and posture changes that you can do to reduce that pain. From a side view, if as you're playing you tend to bend at your knees that keep your bottom tucked under and this is kind of your ready set position, this actually puts a unnecessary amount of stress on the front of your knees because of your hips being tucked under and shifting your center of gravity forward putting that pressure into the knee. Instead, if you make sure that you're hinging at your hips and opening up your bottom backwards, keeping those knees on top of your shins rather than in front, this is going to take the pressure that was in the front of your knees and shift it back into your glutes. So this should instead be your position. From a front view, if you tend to play with your feet turned out and your knees like to go out to the side as you're in a ready position or as you're moving side to side, this actually puts unnecessary amount of overuse and overwork on all the structures on the outside of your legs. So instead, we want to make sure that we're always keeping our feet in neutral and as we are sitting back hinging in those hips like we just talked about, those knees should stay in line with your feet rather than those knees wanting to cave in or bow out as you're playing. So this is true whether you're standing still waiting for the ball or if you're moving and shuffling side to side, you still want everything to stay in this forward alignment. This will make sure that you are using your outer and inner muscle structures and ligaments equally. It'll also mean you're keeping the pressure in your hips rather than your knees which is going to reduce the need for knee braces or compression sleeves for pain that might exist below your kneecap or on the outside of your knee especially, okay? And then you can do exercises like squats as a warm-up making sure that you are sitting back into your hips as you squat down and also making sure that your feet are in neutral and your knees are going back and staying on top of your shins as you squat down. This is not meant to be a full deep squat, this is more meant to be just a little mini squat to remind you of the proper posture that you want to do as you're playing. So squats are a good warm-up also doing side shuffles but making sure you're being intentional about keeping your feet in neutral and keeping your knees in the line as you do that again to remind your brain how you're supposed to move properly while you're playing. The good thing about habits is you can always create a new one but you have to be intentional about it so the more you practice before playing the better you're going to get and the more naturally you're going to move that way rather than having to think so hard about it. So if you like learning about topics like this how to just make small movement changes so you can increase the longevity of being able to be active make sure to like and subscribe to this channel because I share information like this all the time about different hobbies such as running, walking, playing pickleball or just doing other everyday activities that you would do anyway. I'm Dr. Christina and if you try out these moves and you don't notice any improvement in that knee pain with improving your posture and these warm-ups then make sure to reach out to a neuromuscular expert like myself, a physical therapist who can develop a personalized program for you and also make sure that you're doing these things exactly right because YouTube videos can only go so far to teach you how you're supposed to move but sometimes we don't always move the way we're supposed to even though we think we are. So try it out and let me know in the comments if these warm-ups or if these changes in postures were helpful for you.