Pickleball Injury Prevention: The 5-Minute Warm-Up a Sports Chiropractor Taught Me
Pickleball injury prevention is the least exciting topic in the sport, right up until the moment you are limping off the court. I know because I have done the limping. I have rolled my ankles more times than I would like to admit, and I injured my wrist badly enough that it needed professional treatment right before I started my YouTube channel. Getting hurt in this sport is painful, it is expensive, and most of the time it is preventable.
Here is the uncomfortable truth: most pickleball players do nothing to prepare their bodies before playing. We show up, dink for two minutes, and call ourselves warmed up. Then we wonder why ankle sprains, calf strains, and shoulder pain are everywhere at the local courts.
This article covers the 5-minute warm-up routine a sports chiropractor taught me on camera - the same routine he uses with pro players before tournaments - plus why pickleball produces so many injuries in the first place, and what to do when you get hurt anyway.
Watch: 5 Minutes to Prevent Injuries and Improve Your Mobility on the court - Backpaddle Pickleball
Why Pickleball Injures So Many Players
Pickleball has a specific injury problem, and it comes from the collision of two things: what the game demands and who is playing it.
What the game demands: sudden lateral lunges for wide dinks, hard stops and starts in the transition zone, quick rotations for drives and overheads, and hundreds of small direction changes per session. The court is small, so the movements are explosive rather than sustained. Your ankles, knees, hips, and lower back absorb all of it.
Who is playing it: a huge share of players are adults coming back to competitive sport after years away, or picking up their first racquet sport in their 40s, 50s, or 60s. The competitive instincts are fully intact. The tissue tolerance is not. Your brain remembers being able to sprint for that ball. Your calf disagrees, loudly.
The most common results are the ones you have probably seen at your own courts: rolled ankles from lateral movement, calf and Achilles strains from explosive push-offs, wrist injuries from falls, shoulder irritation from overheads, and lower back pain from bending and rotating with a stiff spine. In my experience, the ankle is the big one - it is the joint doing the most emergency work when you stretch for a wide ball, and it is usually the least prepared.
None of this means pickleball is dangerous. It means pickleball makes specific demands, and you can prepare for specific demands.
Dinking for Two Minutes Is Not a Warm-Up
Here is the standard pickleball "warm-up" I see everywhere, and the one I did for years: walk onto the court, dink crosscourt for a couple of minutes, maybe hit a few drives, then start the first game.
That routine warms up your shots. It does almost nothing for your body. Dinking from a comfortable standing position never takes your ankles, hips, or spine anywhere near the ranges you will hit in a real point - the full-stretch lunge for a wide dink, the deep bend for a low reset, the violent rotation on an overhead. The first time your body visits those positions is mid-rally, at full speed, under pressure. That is exactly how injuries happen.
A real warm-up does two jobs a dink session cannot. First, it takes your joints through the extreme ranges of motion the game will demand, gradually, so those positions are rehearsed before they happen at speed. Second, it fires up the muscles that protect those joints - glutes, quads, calves - so they are actually switched on when you need them to catch you.
The good news is that doing this properly takes about five minutes. When I filmed this routine with Dr. Scott - a sports chiropractor who treats pickleball pros and who personally fixed my wrist - I was genuinely sweating by the end of it, and I have never felt more ready to move at the start of a session. His whole philosophy is that the warm-up should prepare your body specifically for pickleball movements, not generic exercise.
The 5-Minute Pickleball Warm-Up Routine
This is the exact three-exercise routine from the video. No equipment, done courtside in your shoes. It targets the hips, back, and shoulders, and it doubles as mobility training: if you press into these positions like you are trying to gain range, you gradually improve your ankle, knee, and hip mobility over time instead of just maintaining it.
Exercise 1: Deep Squat Hold, Then Squats
Set your feet as wide as you need, then squat your butt straight down as low as you can while keeping your chest upright. Sit in the bottom position for about 30 seconds and gently lean side to side. This drives your hips and knees into maximum flexion - the deep-bend territory of low resets and low volleys. It will feel stiff at first. That stiffness is the point; after 30 seconds or so your body adjusts.
From the bottom, stand all the way up by driving through your heels and squeezing your glutes, then sit back down to the bottom. Four or five slow reps. Now your glutes, hip joints, knee joints, and ankle joints are awake.
Exercise 2: Side Lunges
Lunge sideways as far as you can while keeping the heel of your bent leg on the ground, come back up, and go to the other side. You only hold the bottom for a second - down, hit the position, back up. Aim for 10 to 15 reps, or until the movement starts to feel fluid instead of creaky.
This one is a rehearsal for the single most injury-prone moment in pickleball: reaching for a wide dink or a fast ball to your sideline. The side lunge is the extreme version of that exact movement. You are warming up the ankles, firing the quads and glutes, and training knee, hip, and ankle mobility all at once. If you cannot keep your heel down at first, come up on your toes and keep practicing - the range comes with time.
Exercise 3: Lunge Twists
Step forward into a deep lunge, clasp your hands in front of you, and twist your spine as far as you can away from your front leg - if your right leg is forward, twist left, actively, looking behind you. Hold for one breath. Then step your back leg through into a lunge on the other side and twist the other way. About 10 total.
The lunge forces your ankle to stabilize in a stretched position, front and back. The twist is for your thoracic spine and lower back - the rotation you must have for drives, serves, and overheads. Think about what an overhead actually is: point, twist, snap. If your upper back and shoulders are not opened up, some other joint gets to absorb that violence instead.
Total time: four to five minutes. The first time I did the full sequence I said, half joking, that I did not want to play pickleball anymore - it is real work. But I stepped onto the court feeling properly warmed up for the first time, and it gave me real confidence to move fast without bracing for something to go wrong.
Give Previously Injured Joints Extra Attention
If you have an injury history - and if you have played this sport for more than a year, you probably do - Dr. Scott's advice is to highlight that joint during your warm-up rather than avoid it.
For my ankle, his prescription was a 30-second single-leg stand before playing. It sounds almost too simple, but the reasoning is solid: balancing on one leg forces your brain to re-open the communication line to that ankle, fires up the muscles in the foot, ankle, and knee, and drives blood flow to the area. A joint with an active nervous system connection reacts faster when it gets loaded unexpectedly mid-point - which is precisely when re-injuries happen.
The general rule: spend an extra 30 seconds preconditioning whatever part of you has been hurt before. It is the cheapest insurance in the sport.
Your Shoes Matter More Than You Think
A warm-up prepares your body, but your equipment either supports that work or undermines it - and the equipment that matters most for injury prevention is on your feet.
Running shoes are built for one direction: forward. Pickleball is a lateral game, and a shoe with a soft, tall running sole gives your ankle nowhere stable to land when you push hard sideways. A lot of the rolled ankles at rec play trace back to exactly this. Court shoes are built with firmer lateral support and a flatter, grippier sole designed for side-to-side movement.
After enough ankle rolls, I switched to shoes built specifically for pickleball. I play in Montis now, and the lateral support has made a noticeable difference on hard sideways pushes and quick split-step adjustments.
No shoe makes you invincible, and no shoe replaces the warm-up. But stacking prepared joints on top of stable footwear is how you stop donating money to urgent care.
What to Do When You Get Hurt Anyway
Prevention lowers your odds. It does not make you bulletproof, and how you respond to an injury determines how much pickleball it costs you.
The first rule is the one nobody follows: stop playing. Finishing the game on a freshly rolled ankle because "it is 9-8" is how a one-week injury becomes a six-week injury. I have made this trade before. It is a bad trade.
The second rule: get real treatment for anything that does not clearly resolve on its own within a few days. When I hurt my wrist, having it properly treated by a professional sped up my recovery dramatically compared to my usual strategy of ignoring it and hoping. I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advice - it is the testimony of a guy who tried the ignore-it method several times and can report that it does not work.
The third rule: come back gradually, and treat the injured area to that extra 30 seconds of warm-up attention forever. An injury is not just tissue damage; it disrupts the communication between your brain and that joint. Rebuilding that connection is part of recovery, and it is exactly what the single-leg stand and similar preconditioning work does.
For more on the movement side of staying healthy - because bad footwork is also how players get hurt - see our article on pickleball footwork and why you miss shots.
Key Takeaways
Pickleball injury prevention comes down to a five-minute habit: deep squat hold with a few slow squats, side lunges, and lunge twists before you play, plus 30 extra seconds on any joint you have injured before. It rehearses the exact positions the game will force you into and switches on the muscles that protect you there. Add court shoes with real lateral support, respect injuries when they happen, and you will spend a lot more of this year playing and a lot less of it recovering.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the most common pickleball injuries?
Ankle sprains from lateral movement, calf and Achilles strains from explosive push-offs, wrist injuries from falls, shoulder irritation from overheads, and lower back strains from rotating with a stiff spine. Ankle injuries are especially common because the ankle stabilizes every wide reach.
How should I warm up for pickleball?
Spend about five minutes on dynamic mobility before you hit a ball: a 30-second deep squat hold with slow squats, 10-15 side lunges, and about 10 lunge twists. This prepares your hips, ankles, back, and shoulders for actual pickleball movements. Dinking alone does not warm up your body.
Are running shoes OK for pickleball?
They are a common cause of rolled ankles. Running shoes are designed for forward motion, and their soft, tall soles are unstable during hard lateral pushes. Court shoes or pickleball-specific shoes with lateral support are a much safer choice.
How long should a pickleball warm-up take?
Four to five minutes is enough if the time is spent on the right movements - deep squats, side lunges, and lunge twists - rather than casual dinking. Add 30 seconds of extra attention for any previously injured joint.