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Hey guys, Tony Maritato here, licensed physical therapist, and behind me on the screen is one
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of my favorite YouTube channels related to pickleball. It's primetime pickleball. They're talking about mistakes made with a backhand return or volley, and I want to talk
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about the muscle action that's required for this basic motion and how it relates to rotator
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cuff injury, rotator cuff pain, or rotator cuff tears. so I'm going to play this in a slow motion speed so that we can kind of watch what's going on so
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right here she's got the wind up she's got the contact and she's got the follow through and it's
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a beautiful stroke and you can see here when she goes into her backhand she winds up and right as
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she makes contact, that motion is essentially internally rotating the arm and horizontal
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adduction of the shoulder. Those two motions are usually pretty comfortable even when somebody has
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a rotator cuff tear or injury. But what happens is as she starts to accelerate through toward the
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ball and at contact with the ball, that's probably one of the most challenging positions for somebody
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who has an inflamed rotator cuff tendon, whether it be the supraspinatus or any of the four
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rotator cuff muscle tendons, because that is taking you from a horizontal AD ducted position
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to an AB ducted position. It's taking you from internal rotation to external rotation
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and that is typically the hardest position for the shoulder to move when it's actively
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inflamed and painful and then of course after she makes contact with the ball
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finishing in this nice high externally rotated abducted shoulder position again that a really challenging position whether you have limited or full range of motion just knowing that that probably going
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to be one of the hardest things for you to deal with if you continue to play pickleball with an
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inflamed shoulder so what we want to understand is we want to say well is there a way for me to
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still utilize a backhand strategy to return a ball without necessarily compromising the integrity of
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the rotator cuff muscles themselves so this is all great i would use exactly your same technique
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for your wind up and then once you're making that contact while it's ideal to finish in that
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high abducted position to conserve kind of what's going on in the shoulder what I would recommend is
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you swing through you make beautiful contact and then you finish in a low palm forward position
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you're still going to get the external rotation but now your hand is going to be down by your thigh
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rather than up over the shoulder that's going to allow you to continue to play while you're
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figuring out what you're going to do with the shoulder and it's going to reduce the active
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exacerbation and the damage associated with whatever is going on so that you can manage
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the symptoms. You know, part of keeping the sport that you love in your life is understanding how to
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modify the things that you're doing so you can continue to play without causing more
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tissue damage and trauma before you get full recovery. So guys, if you have more questions, I'm going to go through a couple of the other movements
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Like we'll go through a forehand. We'll go through a serve. but I just wanted to start with the backhand because I know this is one of the most complicated
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movements for anybody who's dealing with shoulder pain. I will catch you guys on the next video
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Thanks so much for watching
