When we have a new hobby for a sport, the physical preparation of this sport is very important, whether it is amateur or wanting to develop it professionally. We know that great professional athletes have many hours of training and physical preparation behind them. Physical preparation on paddle tennis is necessary for be better players and have better games, This will make it more enjoyable and you will be able to increase your dexterity with the racket and on the field.
If you want to be a better player, you will have to have a specific type of physical preparation to help you have better games in the future. If you improve you will reach the balls sooner, it will give you more time to execute better strokes and with the correct technique, without precipitation and being able to see where you want to direct the ball before hitting.
It has always been said that the «Paddle is played with the legs» And this statement is quite true, since if your legs do not respond, no matter how good you are at hitting the balls, you will never reach them.
The type of physical preparation you need to play paddle tennis
To have a better game, you need to perform a series of routines that allow you to improve. It is not worth doing the typical gym routines, with that practice little is improved, and it can even make it harmful to our development. You have to train strength, endurance, speed and flexibility, and for this, other types of exercises must be done. Also, you need two different types of preparation to be able to cover all areas.
You must prevent injuries
Another reason why we must dedicate part of our time to physical preparation is the prevention of injuries. Because as has always been said: "Prevention is better than cure". Many of the injuries that occur in the amateur field are due to the body may not be used to that movement. So, You must invest in hours of prevention to save yourself a future injury.
Prepare yourself physically and psychologically
Finally, training yourself physically positively affects your mind, creating a mental strength that allows us to face stressful situations within games. In key moments, it helps to make the right decisions, since if our legs are fine, surely our mind is clear, instead, heavy and fatigued legs, discomfort in the elbow and a racing heart, our mind will be bad and blocked.
Exercises for your physical preparation
If you are a padel player and you want to improve your level of play, you should put more emphasis on technical work and develop a strength program. So, We want to tell you what you should focus on to improve in these aspects.
Next, I will expose some of the fundamental exercises that can not be missing in your physical preparation.
Benefits of a better physique in paddle tennis
Before commenting on how we can increase endurance and strength, we want to highlight the benefits of being in good physical condition. With the exercises you will get the following benefits:
- A Pair of more explosive displacements they will help you get to the balls faster.
- With displacements more solid, more balanced will allow us a better direction and hitting power.
- Greater resistance during matches. A padel match is demanding, mental fatigue meets physical fatigue, if we are able to avoid the latter, we will be stronger than rivals.
- Increase in power in the blows. Having greater strength in the upper three will allow us to have more power in the blows, making us win more points.
- Better hitting power is maintained during the game.
- You will reach more balls. If you train the lower body, that is, the legs, you can easily move your legs and get to the balls, you will be fast and fast to be able to hit and win the point.
This is how you should train endurance
To train resistance you must distinguish two training methods, the traditional resistance method and the HIIT method.
The most traditional method is based on doing long sessions of more than 45 minutes of aerobic exercises such as going for a run, running on a treadmill, swimming, riding a bike, etc. This method will allow us, on the one hand, to burn calories and thus help to have a caloric deficit that allows us to lose weight and reduce fatIn addition, that will help you improve lung capacity, it will make us have more resistance in the game.
The HIIT method is based on mixing intense intervals with rest intervals. For example, a HIIT workout would be to do 10 sessions of 30 seconds sprinting at maximum speed, and a minute of recovery. This will make our technique on the paddle better to increase our resistance during the match, since we are always combining technique with sprints to get to the balls.
This is how you should train strength
On the other hand, to increase the strength in the paddle you must choose other multi-joint exercises with different weights. We can do these exercises in a gym or anywhere if we have the necessary material.
The exercises you should pay attention to the most are:
- Squats: This is the quintessential leg exercise. Working the squats will allow us to strengthen all the lower muscles with special emphasis on the gluteus and quadriceps. If you look at professional players, they play the entire game in a squatting position, the same movement as we do when squatting.
- Bench press: this movement helps our chest to exercise, it is a pushing exercise where many more muscles are involved. The pectoral, the anterior shoulder and the triceps are worked. These 3 muscles are very important when we perform all kinds of strokes.
- Triceps exercises: performing triceps exercises such as the closed press, or the triceps exercise with a pulley, allow you to work those muscles that are so important for paddle tennis.
If you want to improve your technique, keep these tips and exercises in mind so that your next game is the best game you've ever played.