During my time on the courts, I’ve heard quite a bit of commentary about using or not using the wrist as a pickleball player. Some people find a bit of wrist movement helpful, while others tend to heavily condemn it.
Today, I want to take a moment to discuss some considerations from the perspective of a healthcare and wellness provider.
If you’ve been playing pickleball for a while, you’ve likely learned that the wrist shouldn’t be your primary mover when you hit the ball. This is absolutely true, as most of the movement should come from the shoulder (mainly rotational shoulder movements, if we want to get specific). There are a few different reasons for this.
First off, the muscles of the shoulder and shoulder blade are quite simply built to generate more force and power than the smaller muscles of the wrist and forearm.
When used as a primary force generator during paddle or racquet sports, the smaller muscles of the forearm tend to be more susceptible to overuse injuries. This often results in one of two types of common injury.
The first is tennis elbow, more formally known as lateral epicondylitis (say it 5 times fast, I dare you). This injury occurs due to overuse of the wrist extensors (if you have your palm down, the movement that you create by bending your wrist upward is wrist extension). In short, overuse causes the muscles that run up the back of the forearm to become tight and irritable, resulting in pain at their origin point around the outer elbow. If you see someone walking around with a small strap or brace around their elbow, there’s a very solid likelihood that they’re dealing with this issue.
Carpal tunnel is the other common type of issue that can occur. This issue involves irritation of a nerve that provides feeling and strength to the hand, called the median nerve. This issue is more common when somebody repetitively over flexes the wrist (if your palm is facing downward, flexion is what you’re doing if you bend the wrist down). If the muscles that create this motion become irritated or enlarged due to overuse, they can put excessive pressure on the median nerve. This condition is unpleasant to say the least, and can cause shooting pains in the hand as well as numbness or a sensation of pins and needles.
From a less injury related standpoint, when it comes to pickleball, your wrist should primarily be functioning to keep your paddle stable. When you’re instead using the wrist to generate movement as you hit the ball, you may find that you’re sacrificing some of your control and placement in order to do so.
For these reasons, I would recommend that newer players mainly focus on keeping their wrist still during play for the most part. However, as you work on honing good pickleball habits and improving your game, using your wrist in specific situations may become an advantage at times.
In short, you must know the rules in order to break the rules.
One potentially good time to use the wrist is when someone has fired the ball at your feet. As I probably don’t need to tell you, things tend to move quickly when this happens. Bringing your arm into position with the ball and doing a quick flick of the wrist may be enough to save the point on what is otherwise a very challenging return to make.
A little wrist movement may also come in handy when you’re trying to put some topspin on the ball. Additionally, when attempting to speed up a putaway, a tiny bit of wrist movement may help you add a little bit of velocity onto the ball, improving your chances of successfully winning the point (again, always focus on precision before you worry about things like maximizing speed, though!).
You may notice that a lot of the times when moving the wrist can be helpful involve very specific situations. These hits aren’t ones that you’re going to be doing every single time that you return the ball, meaning that you may only be completing these movements a few times a day as opposed to a few hundred or thousand. Because overuse injuries inherently involve, well, overuse, using the wrist sparingly for specific scenarios tends to be a pretty safe thing.
Now, what if you want to drill on a specific skill involving wrist motion? You can’t hone a technique in a single day, of course. In short, practice moderation. Start with low numbers of repetitions each day, and gradually add on so that you can allow your body to adapt. Most overuse injuries occur because people go from doing very few repetitions of a movement to doing quite a few with no conditioning or training involved. As long as there are no symptoms, gradually conditioning your wrist to be able to drill a skill is totally okay. Just be aware of your body, and always stop when your form begins to diminish or if you do begin to experience any symptoms.
So, what if you do suspect that you’re starting to have issues such as tennis elbow or carpal tunnel? The good news is that by loosening up the irritated structures, correcting body mechanics, and working on proper training, these issues tend to resolve quite well without the need for shots or surgery.
Here at Serendipity, we specialize in working with pickleball players to help improve performance, flexibility, conditioning, and other factors that may impact your game. Additionally, we’re well versed in treating issues such as tennis elbow and carpal tunnel. If you’d like to improve your game or get back out there with less pain or achiness, please give us a call at (239) 232-8155, or send us an email at Contact@SerendipityPTW.com. We would love to see how we can help get you moving at your best!
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