Got Shoulder Pain from Pickleball? Watch This!

got shoulder pain or rotator cuff pain from playing pickleball? well this is the video for you. today i'm going to show you some stretches and exercises to relieve shoulder pain. so let's get started. so a really common injury with pickleball is shoulder pain. the rotator cuff, sometimes some tendonitis in there, could be bursitis, a lot of just kind of like tennis, you know with that pickleball, when you're swinging like that, you can get stuff really irritated in there. so once we get going, you're going to need a couple pieces of equipment. i've got this pvc pipe, this cool pvc pipe. you can use, if you don't have any pipe like this, you can use a broomstick, you can use a cane, just some kind of stick to kind of help you with some movements. and then also just a rolled up towel. this will be for a modification of a stretch. so you might not need it, but go ahead and grab it just in case you do need it. if you don't have those with you, hit the pause button, grab those, and then come on back. so the first ones are going to be pendulum exercises. so these are some of my favorite for any kind of shoulder injury as long as you're cleared to be able to do these because they really help loosen up the shoulder, they help open up that joint, and they feel nice and comfortable. so standing up with the pendulum exercises, make sure you have like maybe your countertop or a chair or something where if you're bending over, you can kind of hold on to it because you don't want to worry about your balance because you really want to focus on your shoulder and your arm that you're working on. so with pendulum exercises, they should be mostly what we would call passive, but passive range of motion is really hard to do when you're awake. so it will be kind of an active assisted, but ideally you really want your arm to be super relaxed while you're doing it. so with the pendulum exercise, i'm going to do first just a circle pendulum circle. so you're bending over and just letting your arm hang down. so you can see here i'm just kind of letting it hang down. kind of if you see pendulums, it's like that. and then you're going to do the movement with your body to make your arm go. and so that's kind of like a pendulum. you're moving a little bit at the top to make the bottom go. so what i'm just going to do is i'm kind of working my body to do circles. so the starting off with just circle pendulum. so you know i'm actively moving it just a little bit, but i'm really kind of letting my whole body do the work. so i'm going counterclockwise, i'm switching, i'm going clockwise, but i'm really letting that arm hang down. it's opening up the that joint area, and it feels really really good on my shoulder. and then kind of going back and forth. so you can do these for time like 30 seconds each way if you want to, or you can do for reps, whatever is most comfortable for you. then the next one is just going to be a front to back. so still kind of stagger my my legs just to kind of get them out of the way. and then i'm now just kind of rocking back and forth. so i'm not doing this. i mean you can if you're not on any shoulder precautions, but ideally if you're really relaxing that shoulder, that's what's going to help loosen it up and make it a little bit more comfortable while you're doing it. and then so same thing you can do it for time or you can do it for reps. and then the next one is just going to be side to side. so now this time i'm kind of swinging my body side to side this way. and so again you can see i'm not just swinging like this, i'm using my whole body to kind of make it go. and again you can do it this way if you don't have an injury where you're not supposed to be actively moving it, but it feels way more comfortable when you're just nice and loosened up and letting everything kind of go like this. so then the next one is just going to be what we call table slides. i'm just going to since i don't want to move really quickly over to a table, i'm just going to use the couch here. you could do it on the couch too, you just need a flat surface. so you can do it on a countertop, you can do it on a table, you can even use a big swiss ball or a therapy ball to roll it out. but really what you're doing is going to be this side now. you know use the the side that that's bothering you. you're just going to place your arm on the table or on the couch with your thumb up. so putting the thumb up just opens that shoulder joint so it's not in an impinged position or in a tight and closed position. and so that usually just makes it more comfortable. and then you're using the surface to support your arm. so it makes it a little bit more comfortable because you're not having to hold the arm up if it's hurting or in pain. because with that pickleball, you know those swinging motions can really irritate the joints here and those rotator cuff muscles. so thumb up and all i'm doing is just sliding forward. so you can see here i'm getting that stretch in the shoulder and then coming back. so it's not necessarily a hold. you can do a little maybe three to five second hold at the end to get that stretch if you want. but this is more of a motion movement exercise. so i'm going getting to where it's nice and tight, little pause, and then coming back. but again that thumb up position, that should make it a little bit more comfortable. pushing the tension, you don't have to force it. you don't want it to be painful, but you do want to feel that little bit of a stretch in there. so again you can do this for time or you can do it for reps, whatever is most comfortable for you. and you can also if you're at the table or countertop, you could do both stretching them both out if you wanted to just to make it more comfortable. so then the next one is going to be a chest stretch. you really want to open up that chest area because a lot of times, especially that swinging forward, you might get those tight pec muscles. or sometimes a lot of times in pickleball, people kind of stay in this position until they swing. and so you really want to open up that chest area. and that helps with the shoulders because if they're rolled forward, that's going to cause some pain and some impingement in those areas where it can really irritate the shoulder area. so this is where the towel comes in. if you are unable to clasp your hands behind you, you can use a towel to just kind of hold it here like this. so i'll do it first just with my hands clasped. so what i'm doing is i'm going to push out and away, and then kind of push my chest forward. so i'm doing this motion, and i'm getting a nice stretch in the pec area, the chest area here. so getting that stretch, pushing everything kind of out, pushing my hands back and away. and then this is holding it for 30 seconds, getting that nice stretch in there. but again if you can't quite get there, especially if it's painful or if it's just too tight, you can hold the towel or stick or a belt or something, and then just push back this way. so i'm still getting a pretty good stretch even though my hands aren't clasped together. and then you don't even have to use a towel. if you don't have anything, you can just kind of push your arms back if you want to stretch out before you go play pickleball. you can do this by the court before you get started, and that helps open it up. so 30 second holds, take a little break in between, and do that three times. so then a lot of times with that shoulder pain, especially when you're usually in this motion, it might be a little bit uncomfortable to lift it up higher. so that's where the stick comes in, the pvc pipe, or the broomstick, or the cane. and this is just to help. it's called active assisted range of motion. so i like the pvc pipe, especially when it has a little hook on it, because then you can just kind of place your hand on it like that. but you don't have to. you can kind of hold it this way with that thumb kind of in that upward position. if you're going just straight up, you can hold it up on top. but the the idea of this is really the stick is going to do all the work. so if i want to get the motion on this side, if this side is the one that's hurt, this arm is really going to be doing all the motion with the stick. and this one's just kind of going along for the ride. so ideally you want to be kind of passive, but again if you're awake, you're really not going to be able to do passive motion. so it's kind of that assisted. so it's just really just kind of holding on. and i'm using the other side to bring it up into that stretch. so even if i can only come to like right here, and i start feeling that stretch, that's fine. a little pause at the top and coming back down. so this is more for motion instead of a stretch. so again you can pause it a little bit, but you're really wanting that complete movement. you can hold on to the side if you want your thumb up. if this is a little bit uncomfortable, you can kind of hold here. and then again the other side is doing all the work. this is what i'm doing. and then this one's just kind of hanging on for the ride. so this would be for shoulder flexion. and then if i wanted to go out into abduction, again i kind of that's why i like the thing here. i can hold it my thumbs in that upward position. and now i'm just kind of pushing out to the side here. if i want to keep on going all the way up, if i can sometimes that's a little uncomfortable. so again just kind of going to the motion where you feel like it's tension, but not pain. and then nice and slow coming back down. so again you can do it for time, or you can do it for reps. a little pause at the top and then coming back down. and that's a really nice stretch in the shoulder. you're using that assistance of actively bringing it up hurts. this is a really nice way to do it. and then the last one, especially if you've got some shoulder issues when you're kind of swinging back and forth, maybe you're trying to do some backhanded ones, that rotation movement, that external rotation movement can be tight and uncomfortable. and a lot of times that will cause a lot of shoulder pain in there. so you can do the external rotation with the stick here. so again my thumb's kind of in that upward position that just opens up that shoulder, so it makes it a little less painful. it's not quite as impinged. and now i'm just pushing outwards this way into that rotation. now sometimes people will want to kind of go and their elbow leaves the area there, and then you're not quite getting that external rotation. so this is where you can bring the towel back in. and i'm just going to put the towel kind of between my arm and my body here, and i'm squeezing in. so i need to keep that towel there while i'm rotating out, and then i know my my arm and my elbow are where they're supposed to be. and if my arm comes away, then the towel drops. and i know that i need to kind of squeeze it in a little bit more to get that rotation. so if i'm holding it here again, and i'm pushing it out again, letting the stick do all the work, this is just kind of going along for the ride, and then getting that nice external rotation stretch in there. so there you have it. those were some stretches and exercises to relieve shoulder pain, especially from pickleball. if you'd like to help support my channel, click on the link up there. and don't forget to subscribe where, Callie? yeah, down there. and remember, be safe, have fun, and i hope you feel better soon.