The yoga swing trapeze in my hallway (home health tricks to save your body from pickleball #myfavoritethings).

When my husband and I first started playing pickleball for fun and health we had no idea how often we would be hurt or injured as a result, and we clearly had no way to predict how many gadget's we would wind up needing to keep our bodies functioning on the courts, on the regular. It's astonishing..... giggle

While nowadays we seem to have settled both into our bodies and can play 5-8 times a week pretty easily with just some good upkeep habits (foot rubs are essential), I'll never forget those first few months how we would wake up everyday with our muscles screaming, bones creaking, nearly crippled, barely able to walk either one or both of us at any given time, hilariously hobbling around on our aging bodies that hadn't used certain muscles or tendons in a certain way for a very, very long time. It was a real shock to the system.

Within the first 3 months I had rolled my ankle and was supposed to spend 6 (turned out to be 3 and a half) weeks, off of it. I spent a LOT of time trying to get better and I tried all of the "things" that said they would help. We've pulled our backs, hips, knees, shoulders and elbows on the reg and as a result we have a myriad of items that we swear by, to help ease the pain or maintain. We learned by trial and error mostly, but also with a few recommendations from friends. So while there are countless lists of what should be in your pickleball bag for the courts, I have a list of things we have used in our home on the reg to be able to KEEP GOING BACK to the courts. I'll start with this:

Hanging on my yoga swing

My fly time on my swing! Extra scary cause it floats over the stairs!

First and foremost for me, is my Yoga Trapeze swing. Honestly if you have back issues this is a simple way to release your back when it's raging I couldn't live without it. As a bonus it's got uses beyond just helping your back and I wouldn't dare to instruct anyone on how to use it as a whole (there is a lot of info on YT) but for me it's as simple as stretching /using it for support and balance while I do so. I don't rely on it but it's there to catch myself with if I need it. Also copying what they do with a TRX unit is a groovy way to utilise this as well. Finally in my opinion to use this properly there should be a lot of swinging.

using my yoga swing / trapeze for spinal decompression

My YOGA SWING TRAPEZE is my number one favorite thing!! Find it here!

This is the first installment of my favorite things!