Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the United States and may be on the fast track to becoming an Olympic sport.

With the explosion of pickleball participation, there’s also sharp rise of  pickleball-related injuries seen in U.S. emergency rooms. Still, this data does not offer an accurate picture of what types of injuries are most prevalent.

“Without accurate information on injuries, it will be difficult to develop strategies to prevent these injuries and allow people to access the benefits of increased activity in the safest way possible,” said Olu Owoeye, Ph.D., director of the Translational Sports Injury Prevention (TIP) Lab at Saint Louis University.

The SLU TIP Lab is introducing SPIN, an acronym for Surveillance in Pickleball Players to reduce INjury burden, a multi-faceted, multi-year research project to address injury concerns with pickleball and study the health benefits that can be gained through pickleball participation.

The goals of SLU TIP Lab researchers are to describe the most common pickleball-related injuries and devise data-driven prevention strategies through multiple phases of the SPIN Project.

The initial phase of the project is a participation and injury survey for pickleball players to complete online. If you are a pickleball player, you may click here to participate in this research study. This survey will provide the SPIN team with accurate information about how often participants play and the type and frequency of injuries that they are experiencing.

“We are recruiting 3,000 participants for this phase of the study from across all skill and age levels, age 18 and older, to give us the most accurate picture of pickleball injuries available to date,” said Owoeye, assistant professor of physical therapy and athletic training at SLU.

Once this data has been analyzed, SLU TIP Lab researchers and expert partners will design prevention strategies. The research incorporates trials to test the effectiveness of pickleball-specific injury prevention strategies.

“The recent burst in pickleball participation in the United States has provided a unique opportunity to study injuries and health benefits,” Owoeye said. “The SPIN Project is positioned to provide a wealth of information to pickleball players, clubs, and equipment manufacturers on how to manage the risks and reap the benefits of pickleball most effectively going forward.”

For more information, email tip.lab@health.slu.edu.