The Long Game Protocol · Pickleball Medicine · Buford
Play for the decades. Not the seasons.
The clinical pickleball longevity system from Dr. Joe Krzemien, D.C. The Southeast’s first comprehensive pickleball medicine program.
Built by the team chiropractor seat — 10 seasons with the Atlanta Dream, 13 NFL seasons with the Falcons, PFCS Hall of Fame 2025. Four stages: assessment, treatment, prevention, return-to-play. Every age, every level.
Pickleball injuries don’t respect the visit-and-leave model. A pickleball elbow today is a rotator cuff in six months if the underlying movement pattern never gets addressed. This program is built around that reality. You come in once for an injury and stay in a system that keeps you on the court.
Four stages
One program. Four pillars.
Most pickleball injury care is reactive. This program treats what hurts now and screens for what hasn’t broken yet. The two halves work together.
01
Assessment
A 60-minute clinical evaluation built specifically for pickleball players. Movement screen, paddle-arm assessment, rotational chain, single-leg balance, hip internal rotation, thoracic mobility, calf endurance. We tell you what’s working, what’s drifting, and what will break next if it’s ignored.
02
Treatment
Active Release Technique, Graston, manipulation if indicated, ARP Wave or Erchonia laser for stubborn cases, decompression for disc cases. Same pro-team caliber care given to NFL and WNBA athletes. Scaled to your case, your age, your goals.
03
Prevention
The drift that hasn’t become an injury yet. Targeted strength for hip stability, calf endurance, rotator cuff resilience, and the change-of-direction loading the sport actually demands. Programs you run between visits.
04
Return-to-play
Most return-to-play decisions are guessed. Ours are tested. We don’t discharge you until you can play your normal volume without flaring it back up. Tournament players get a separate ramp.
Who it’s for
Pickleball is a long game. At every age.
The program scales. The physiology, the injury patterns, and the return-to-play timelines are different at every life stage.
Starting out.
Overuse injuries. Ankle sprains from rapid lateral steps. Hyperextension from low-angle reaches. Most cases are short-fix if caught early. Volume management is the actual treatment.
The demand years.
Pickleball elbow, plantar fasciitis, the first chronic back. Players adding volume on top of an aging musculoskeletal system without changing the input. Soft-tissue work plus a real loading program is the answer.
The decision years.
Players taking the sport seriously, often after retirement or kids out of the house. Rotator cuff strain, hip mobility decline, recovery time changes. The window where prevention work pays the longest dividend.
The longevity years.
Falls become the dominant injury. The peer-reviewed evidence is now strong that targeted hip-strength and change-of-direction training cuts fall rates in senior pickleball players. We run that protocol.
The master years.
Playing into the 80s is possible and increasingly common. The protocols change. Volume management, balance work, and a clinical relationship that’s built around playing for years, not visits per year.
Why this program
Built by someone who sits in the team chiropractor seat.
Dr. Joseph Krzemien, D.C. In his tenth season as team chiropractor for the Atlanta Dream. Former Atlanta Falcons team chiropractor, 13 NFL seasons. Professional Football Chiropractic Society Hall of Fame, Class of 2025. Now translating that protocol set to the fastest-growing sport in America.
Beyond the sidelines
Twenty-three years of practice across professional sport, entertainment, and on-set production care.
- · Film & television actors
- · Producers & directors
- · Touring musicians
- · Pro athletes, multi-league
- · On-set film & TV care
- · Public figures & executives
Pro-team protocols, recreational dose
The same return-to-play decisions made for a WNBA starter or an NFL skill player, scaled for a recreational doubles player and a tournament-bound junior alike.
A program, not a series of appointments
Pickleball injuries aren’t episodes. A pickleball elbow today is a rotator cuff in six months without an underlying program. The four pillars are designed to break that pattern.
Built for the actual demands of the sport
Rotational shoulder loading, repeat lateral steps, abrupt starts and stops, hard court surfaces. The protocols target what pickleball actually does to the body, not what an NFL playbook would suggest.
The Book · The Protocol · Coming Summer 2026
The clinical protocol behind The Long Game.
The four pillars on this page — assessment, treatment, prevention, return‑to‑play — are the same system documented in The Long Game: A Pickleball Longevity Protocol, Dr. Joe’s forthcoming book.
The peer-reviewed evidence is now strong: racquet sports add up to 9.7 years of life expectancy when the body is prepared to keep playing. The book is the playbook. The clinic is where it gets prescribed. Both are built on the same protocol.
Sources: Schnohr et al., Mayo Clin Proc, 2018 · Oja et al., Br J Sports Med, 2017
Already have a specific injury?
We treat the six most common pickleball injuries every week.
Pickleball elbow, rotator cuff, plantar fasciitis, lower back strain, calf strain, and Achilles tendinopathy. Most respond well to 4 to 8 visits if you start before things get chronic.
Buford, GA · 4325 S Lee St · 770.614.6551
Get on the program.
A 60-minute initial assessment is the first step. You leave with a clear picture of where your body is, what’s drifting, and what the next 12 months should look like.