Hip Strength, Change of Direction, and Falls in Recreational Pickleball Players.
Betsy Myers, June Hanks
PMID 39229448WHAT IT FOUND
Recreational pickleball players who reported falling while playing were older and slower on a change-of-direction test, but hip strength, single-leg squat form, and ankle motion were not different between the groups.
Key findings
01Participants who reported falling were significantly older and slower on the pickleball T-test, and these differences had small effect sizes.
02Hip abduction strength did not differ significantly between participants who reported a fall while playing and those who did not report a fall.
03The two leading reasons for falls were lunging and moving backward.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Fall history was collected by retrospective self-report, so players may have misremembered or underreported falls. The study only compared players who reported falling with players who did not; it cannot show that any measured factor caused falls. Testing was performed courtside, sometimes after play or during a break, and test order was not strictly controlled, which could affect performance. The sample was recruited from community pickleball courts and may not represent all pickleball players. The sample size may have been too small to detect differences between groups.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that hip abductor strength is a useful marker of fall risk in recreational pickleball players. Hip abduction strength did not differ between players who reported a fall and players who did not, and the study did not test whether strengthening changes risk.