As a physical therapist, I thought I had heard all the most common questions about a patient’s care: “What am I allowed to do with this injury?”; “Why did this pain start in the first place?”; “How often should I be doing my exercises?” However, thinking back on the summer of 2022, I admit I was fully stumped by a new and unexpected question:

“Can I play pickleball?”

Pickle…ball? I paused in a momentary stupor, palming through the rolodex of my mind for a definition. After drawing a complete blank, I politely stepped away from my patient to frantically search online for a well-informed answer. To summarize my findings, pickleball [noun, pick·​le·​ball] is not only the fastest growing sport in America, but also a racquet sport like squash, tennis, and badminton. Though I’d never seen a pickleball match, I knew that racquet sports share common physical demands; Cutting, rapid acceleration, pivoting, and lunging are all regular parts of the game, and each skill requires a baseline level of strength and flexibility to perform. Needless to say, I was able to address the question in the end.

All of this to illustrate that racquet sports are on the rise. Therefore, I thought the Tournament of Champions was the perfect time to review one of the more common injuries experienced by these players: knee pain. Mechanical knee pain, or patellofemoral pain, is usually due to improper loading of the knee joint in weight-bearing positions. This often is a result of weakness present in major leg muscle groups, which causes additional stress at the knee. Over time, this repetitive stress can lead to damage in the joints and supporting structures around the knee. But there are simple ways players of all levels can prevent this.