Pickleball Hard on Your Knees? Croquet Is the Low-Impact Alternative

If pickleball leaves your knees, hips or shoulders sore the next morning, you are not doing anything wrong. The game is harder on the body than it looks.

A low impact alternative to pickleball might be the thing that keeps you in sport instead of on the couch. That alternative is croquet. It holds onto the two things people love about pickleball: the competition and the company.

Pickleball earned its boom honestly. It is quick to learn, it is sociable, and it has pulled a lot of older Australians off the sidelines.

But the things that make it fun are tough on old joints. The sprint to the net. The sideways lunge on a hard court. Sports physios have watched pickleball injuries climb, and plenty land on players over 50. Rolled ankles. Strained calves. Sore knees and shoulders. For a lot of people the choice narrows to playing through the pain or stopping altogether.

There is a third option.

Croquet keeps the parts of pickleball you came for and drops the pounding. There is no running. There is no jarring change of direction. You walk the lawn at your own pace, line up your shot, and play it.

The surface is grass, not concrete. An afternoon still gets you outside for a couple of hours. Your knees will not file a complaint about it the next day.

What croquet asks of you instead is that you think. People call Association Croquet "chess on grass" for a reason. Every shot sets up the next three, and a sharp player can run a break that leaves the opposition watching.

Golf Croquet is the faster version, and most newcomers start there. It is simpler to pick up but every bit as tactical, a contest of position and timing where the right gentle tap beats the big hit. The work your knees used to do, your head does now. That suits people who are not ready to stop competing just because the body has started having opinions about sprinting.

The social side will feel familiar too. Croquet is a club sport. You turn up, you are paired with people, you play, and you stay for a cuppa afterwards.

Clubs are small enough that you are a name by your second visit. It is a mixed game, men and women on the same lawn, and nobody retires you for your age.

Starting is easier than you would think. You do not need to buy anything, because clubs hand you a mallet and balls. You do not need whites or special shoes for a first hit.

Most Queensland clubs run Come and Try sessions where someone walks you through it for an hour, and the cost to join is low by the standard of any sport. Clubs sit across Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba and plenty of regional towns. The odds are good that one is near you.

If pickleball gave you a taste for a sociable, competitive game and your body is now asking for something gentler, croquet is the version you will still be playing in twenty years.

Find your nearest club and book a free Come and Try session at comeandtrycroquet.com, or browse Queensland clubs at clubhub.croquetqld.org. Bring nothing but a pair of flat shoes.