| Pickleball has taken over the US. This summer, I saw the craze first-hand when I attended the Major League Pickleball championships in Central Park with a friend, complete with national media coverage, a VIP section and a frenzy over pickleball merch. The fastest-growing sport in the US is also driving a rise in related injuries. In fact, UBS analysts calculated that pickleball cost the US almost $400 million in health-care costs in 2023. “It’s really kind of running the gamut of injuries that you’d see with basketball or tennis, and it’s affecting every age group because everyone is playing,” says Josh Dines, a sports medicine specialist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York and medical director for Major League Pickleball. Seven or eight years ago, Dines didn’t even know what the sport was. Now he sees regularly sees pickleballers with damage to Achilles’ heels, rotator cuffs and ACL tears. Pickleball is especially popular as a retirement-age sport, because it’s a social activity and seen as an easier form of tennis – you play with a partner and lob a lightweight plastic ball back and forth over a net on a court. But retirees starting to move their bodies after years of inactivity are more vulnerable to injuries, sometimes due to previously unknown underlying issues. “You’re taking a group that’s been sitting on the couch doing nothing for years and getting them active,” Dines says. Younger people tend to play harder and for longer, and that’s when more extreme injuries and ligament tears can arise, Dines says. Regardless of age group, there’s a false sense of security created by pickleball being perceived as an easy sport, Pickleballers might not be warming up before playing or in between sets, a surefire path to injury. Don’t forget a back warmup, Dines warns. Pickleball includes a lot of bending over and lunging, which can strain players’ backs and lower extremities easily. Still, Dines says, nothing beats getting outside and being active. “I don’t want people to get the wrong idea that it’s a dangerous sport per se,” he says, “because I think anything that keeps people social and active is great.” – Jessica Nix | 
