Why Pickleball

Pickleball is the perfect sport for the aging athlete because it maintains and even develops critical physical health aspects, such as balance, coordination, flexibility, endurance, and yes, even strength. These are physical qualities that decline rapidly with aging, and this deterioration is made worse with a sedentary lifestyle. Pickleball slows down this deterioration, reducing the risk of falls and extending your "health span", defined as living your later years in good health.

Pickleball allows you to participate at your preferred activity and exertion level. Unlike in team sports where you must maintain a certain pace to keep up with the play (such as basketball or soccer) or be left behind, you can play at your own pace. You can rest between serves, force the opponents to dink (or miss!), and rallies tend to be quite short.

Humans are social animals and being part of a group is a natural state of being. It is particularly important as you age, as older people often find themselves living alone. Constantly being alone is associated with negative health outcomes and indeed is used as punishment, even in prisons.

Pickleball allows you to be part of a group with shared interests. Its rules are brilliant, in that they force you to mix with different people, which is good for mental health because dealing with a constantly changing array of partners and opponents sharpens your mind cognitively and emotionally and keeps it flexible. It also minimizes cliques and resentments due to repeated exposure to the same behaviors by the same partners or opponents.

Aside from its very important social aspect, pickleball is a game of skill. While physical skills such as speed, flexibility, strength and endurance are undoubtedly important, all of us have lost to much older, much less physically fit players. How could this happen?

Those older, less fit players probably had a higher "Pickleball IQ", which is another way of saying, they were smarter players. They understood how to play the game - where to place the ball on serves and returns, where to be on the court at what time, and could anticipate what the opponents and teammates were going to do. This latter skill is called the Theory of Mind - understanding other people's minds, and it is a mental skill extremely important in knowing what players on the court are going to do and being ready for it.

Pickleball forces you to move. At first, you may move slowly, but as you warm up and get better, you move more and more. Movement, in moderation, is good for your body and your brain. It improves your cardiovascular fitness, lubricates your joints, makes your muscles and ligaments more suppple, and preserves or increases muscle mass needed to support you body weight and movements.

Movement and moderate exercise, when combined with a sensible diet, helps maintain a healthy body weight and lean muscle, which are extremely important in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Injuries tend to heal more slowly as you age. . Pickleball is safer than most team sports, because mostly self-paced and there is less risk of injury due to overexerting yourself or contact with other players on the court or field. Pickleball allows you to minimize the risk of injuries while enjoying all the mental and physical benefits above.