Pickleball might look easy at first blush, but beginners should approach the sport as they would any other physical activity: gradually.
Easing into pickleball can offer strong physical and mental health benefits, especially for women whose bones have weakened over time due to osteoporosis or osteopenia (initial thinning of bones). The latter affects far more women than men because bone loss can accelerate during menopause.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends osteoporosis screenings for women 65 and older, and for postmenopausal women younger than 65 who have risk factors.
“Weight-bearing exercises like pickleball, as well as supervised weight training, can strengthen women’s bones over time and prevent osteoporosis,” said OB-GYN physician Dr. Ross Spires of Riverside Women’s Care - Bluffton, South Carolina. “Pickleball also helps with hand-eye coordination and neurologic sustainment as players age.”
Beginning April 4, Spires will play in the Low Country Pickleball Classic in Hardeeville, S.C. (Novant Health is the tournament’s title sponsor.)
“Pickleball is more of a strategy game as compared to a hard-hitting game like tennis,” he said. “It’s very quick and reactionary, and you have to be practiced and ready for it, or you won’t play well.”
Here, Spires suggests how to approach the sport safely.
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What are the benefits and risks for women who play pickleball?
Most people assume that pickleball is extremely easy. But it’s as competitive and almost as athletic as tennis, and both require a lot of coordination. Pickleball involves quick reactions – which speed up play – and returning drives and running down balls on drop shots, because a pickleball does not bounce as high as a tennis ball.
There are a lot of people in good physical shape who feel they can transition to pickleball, but that’s where injuries can happen. An osteoporotic woman who is either premenopausal or postmenopausal can suddenly suffer an injury, like an ankle fracture, because it’s really easy to break a minor bone under the pretense that this sport is easy. It’s not.
What are the health benefits and safety concerns with playing pickleball while pregnant?
All the studies out there agree that exercise throughout pregnancy helps increase chances of vaginal delivery. As the baby grows, you’re a bit less coordinated due to your abdominal center of gravity being different. But if you’re athletic to begin with, it’s not that hard of a transition.
There’s nothing wrong with playing pickleball all the way to term if you regularly play. But if you haven’t already been physically active, pregnancy would not be the time to dive in for the first time.
How can playing pickleball keep someone mentally and physically balanced?
It requires a lot of hand-eye coordination, which is mentally beneficial when it comes to long-term cognitive ability and decision-making.
Beyond the aging benefits of playing racquet sports, you also have the ability to be out in the sun, get some vitamin D and improve your cortisol levels, which can reduce anxiety and depression symptoms.
Dr. Ross Spires enjoys playing pickleball a few times a week, sometimes with a men’s league but most often with his wife, Gena.
“She drew me into this sport,” he said. “We’re both tennis players, but she ended up with some joint problems over time that made it so she couldn’t run down balls as well as she used to. That moved her toward a sport that allows her to still compete at a high level.”
Spires graduated from the University of Pikeville - Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine and is a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
“A lot of people go to medical school without knowing exactly what they want to pursue,” he said. “But I went in wanting to do obstetrics, and I came out doing obstetrics.”
As an OB-GYN physician for 17 years, Spires also performs robotic-assisted surgery, a minimally invasive procedure that uses interactive arms to deliver precise incisions. Unlike open surgery, the approach offers eligible patients less pain and infection risk, and faster recovery time. To be clear, doctors perform the surgery; the robot is a complex tool.
“Reproduction has been done the same way for millennia,” said Spires, who’s committed to maintaining his low C-section delivery rate. “So I try to let a natural process take place, and guide it if it becomes urgent or emergent.”
