Pickleball Injury Prevention: The 6 Habits That Actually Reduce Risk (2026)

Quick Answer: Pickleball injuries have climbed every year since 2021, and falls — not paddle contact or overexertion — cause roughly 90% of them, according to injury-mechanism data tracked alongside the sport’s growth. The six habits with real evidence behind them are: training balanced footwork so you don’t lunge off-balance, wearing ANSI-rated eye protection, using stable lateral-support court shoes, warming up your wrist and forearm before elbow issues start, taping or supporting a joint that’s already sore, and knowing when a “twinge” is early tendinopathy instead of a one-off ache. None of these require playing more cautiously — they lower risk while you play exactly the same way.

Pickleball’s injury numbers are rising alongside its participation numbers. The Sports & Fitness Industry Association’s 2026 Pickleball Single Sport Report counts 24.3 million Americans playing in 2025, up from 4.2 million in 2020 — a nearly six-fold jump in five years. A 2025 study in JAMA Ophthalmology that mined National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) emergency-room data found 3,112 pickleball-related eye injuries treated between 2005 and 2024, with 1,262 of those in 2024 alone and roughly 405 new cases added every year since 2021. Players 50 and older saw injury rates climb about 39% faster than younger age groups over the same period. None of that means pickleball is unusually dangerous — it means a huge, often-unconditioned player base is running, lunging, and diving for a fast-paced sport most of them never trained for.

1. Train footwork so you don’t lunge off-balance

Falls cause roughly 90% of pickleball injury mechanisms, and almost every fall starts the same way: a player reaches for a ball they should have moved their feet toward instead. A split step timed to your opponent’s contact, a controlled lateral shuffle instead of a lunge, and a pivot-and-step recovery instead of a blind backpedal all keep your base under you. This is the single highest-leverage habit on this list because it addresses 9 out of 10 injury mechanisms directly. See our footwork drills guide for the specific drills.

2. Wear ANSI-rated eye protection, not regular sunglasses

Eye injuries are the one pickleball injury category with a dedicated, peer-reviewed dataset behind it — the JAMA Ophthalmology NEISS study cited above. A pickleball hit from a few feet away travels fast enough to cause real damage, and standard sunglasses aren’t rated for that kind of impact. ANSI Z87.1 sport-rated eyewear is built for it. See our pickleball eye protection guide for models that meet the standard.

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3. Choose court shoes built for lateral cutting, not running shoes

A running shoe is built to move you forward; pickleball needs a shoe that can stop and reverse direction without your ankle rolling underneath you. Reinforced lateral support and a low-to-the-ground sole are what let a controlled shuffle stay controlled instead of turning into a rolled ankle — one of the more common non-fall injuries in the sport. See our best pickleball shoes roundup for court-specific models.

4. Warm up your wrist and forearm before elbow pain starts

Pickleball elbow (a cousin of tennis elbow) builds gradually from repeated off-center contact and tight forearm muscles, not from a single bad shot. A few minutes of wrist flexor/extensor stretches and light forearm rotations before you start playing reduces the cumulative strain that leads to tendinopathy. Once symptoms start, a compression brace can manage load while you address the underlying mechanics — see our pickleball elbow brace guide and tennis elbow paddle picks.

5. Support a joint that’s already sore — don’t play through it

A brace or compression sleeve on a knee, wrist, or elbow that’s already tender isn’t about playing injured — it’s about preventing a minor strain from becoming a torn ligament. Support redistributes load away from the irritated tissue while it recovers between sessions. This matters more in pickleball than in lower-impact sports because the stop-start lateral demands keep re-stressing the same joint every point.

6. Know the difference between a twinge and early tendinopathy

Soreness that fades within a day of rest is normal training load. Pain that returns at the same point in your swing, session after session, is early tendinopathy — and it responds far better to a few days off and rehab now than to being ignored for another month. Pickleball elbow and shoulder impingement both start this way; catching them early is the difference between a week off and a season off.

Pickleball injury prevention, by the numbers

• 24.3 million — Americans who played pickleball in 2025, up from 4.2 million in 2020, per the SFIA 2026 Pickleball Single Sport Report.
• ~90% — the share of pickleball injury mechanisms attributed to falls, per injury-tracking data cited across this site’s footwork and gear guides.
• 3,112 — pickleball-related eye injuries treated in U.S. emergency rooms from 2005-2024, per a 2025 JAMA Ophthalmology NEISS-data study, with 1,262 of those in 2024 alone.
• +39% — how much faster injury rates climbed for players 50 and older versus younger age groups in the same study.

The bottom line

Nothing here asks you to play softer or skip the fun parts of the game. Balanced footwork, real eye protection, court-appropriate shoes, a short warm-up, and paying attention to soreness before it becomes an injury are all habits that run alongside your normal game, not instead of it. Start with footwork and eye protection — they cover the two injury categories with the clearest data behind them — then layer in the rest as your gear needs replacing anyway. For the shot-side half of staying healthy, see how good footwork sets up clean contact instead of a last-second scramble.