Pickleball Fitness: New parts, old parts
USAPA Fitness Contributor, Barb Wintroub, talks about the importance of proper alignment
Getting “spare parts” for our body these days is almost as easy as getting spare parts for our car – especially when it comes to joint replacement. For many of us, without these “new parts” our body would most likely fall apart with how much Pickleball we’re playing. But there’s a problem, often we don’t get our body tuned enough to keep things running just right. Picture this: you buy new tires for your car but you decide not to have the wheels balanced. Some months later you are told you need new tires again because they haven’t worn evenly. The same goes with your body.
After you get, lets say, new knees, no one, even the surgeon can guarantee how the bones will settle. Besides the settling process, your hip muscles have a new angle of bones in them. For example, I have a new toe joint but my new toe is way shorter than it was and the second toe is now overlapping the short first toe.
Take a look at the skeleton pictures below with perfect alignment. Then look at the second picture with the poor alignment. When your muscles tighten around out-of-aligned bones, all new pains begin in your body.
What to do now
Have a good physical therapist, chiropractor, trainer or stretch therapist look at you from bottom-to-top and assess your alignment. You can also do it to yourself – here is one resource from a yoga and meditation center in California. Then begin a stretch program for the issues you are now having.
Remember to keep moving all your parts so you can keep moving on the Pickleball court.
