Impact Accelerations Associated With Pickleball Strokes

PURPOSE: Pickleball is an increasingly popular sport in the United States and across the world. While pickleball is considered less physically demanding than similar racket sports, such as tennis, overuse lower body injuries are still common among pickleball players. Currently, little is known about the physical demands associated with routine pickleball strokes. The purpose of this study was to compare the impact accelerations associated with four fundamental pickleball strokes: the serve, forehand, backhand, and smash. METHODS: Sixteen experienced pickleball players (skill level > 3 according to the US Pickleball Player skill rating) performed eight repetitions of each stroke (serve, forehand, backhand, smash) on a standard outdoor court using their dominant hand. An inertial measurement unit adhered to the player’s pelvis was used to record three-dimensional accelerations. The accelerations from the three sensor axes were combined into a resultant acceleration, which reflected the total acceleration caused by forces acting on the body. The peak resultant acceleration (“impact acceleration”) was identified for each type of stroke. A repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to compare the impact accelerations among the four different stroke types, along with paired t-tests for pairwise comparisons. RESULTS: The mean (± standard deviation) impact accelerations for the serve, forehand, backhand, and smash were 5.0 ± 2.6 m/s2, 8.4 ± 3.1 m/s2, 9.7 ± 4.6 m/s2, and 11.4 ± 6.3 m/s2, respectively. The repeated measures ANOVA indicated that there were significant differences among the four stroke types (p < .001). Pairwise comparisons indicated that impact accelerations were higher for the forehand (p < .001), backhand (p < .001), and smash (p < .001), compared to the serve. Impact accelerations were also higher for the smash compared to the forehand (p = .01). The differences between the forehand and backhand and the backhand and smash were not statistically significant (p ≥ .20). CONCLUSIONS: In general, the serve tends to be relatively low impact, the backhand and forehand tend to be more moderate impact, and the smash tends to be higher impact when comparing the different types of pickleball strokes. The results of this study provide preliminary data to describe the physical demands associated with common pickleball strokes.