What padel asks of your body
- Short, explosive moves in every direction, often in a deep lunge to reach a low ball.
- Many starts and stops on a small court, which load the calves and Achilles tendons.
- Hundreds of shots with one arm, many of them overhead: smashes, bandejas and viboras.
- Twisting through the trunk on almost every shot.
Padel has little training research of its own yet, so the advice here combines what is known about padel injuries with the wider evidence on strength training. That evidence is strong: across sports, strength training programmes cut injuries to about a third in a meta-analysis of 25 trials with 26,610 participants (Lauersen, Bertelsen and Andersen, 2014).
A two-session week for padel players
- Legs: a split squat or lunge, 3 sets of 6 to 10 per leg, and a Romanian deadlift, 3 sets of 6 to 8.
- Calves: calf raises, 3 sets of 10 to 15, slow on the way down.
- Back and shoulders: a row and a face pull or band external rotation, 3 sets each, for the muscles that hold the shoulder in place.
- Forearm and grip: wrist curls and reverse wrist curls, 2 sets of 15, lowering slowly.
- Trunk: a Pallof press or side plank, 2 or 3 sets per side, to resist rotation rather than add more of it.
Do both sides, and start each single-arm or single-leg set with your weaker side. Keep the heavy leg work at least a day away from a match or tournament.
Elbow and shoulder: train them before they complain
Tendons adapt to load more slowly than muscles, and the hitting arm gets a lot of it. Slow, controlled work for the forearm and the back of the shoulder builds capacity in exactly the places padel strains. A heavy racket, a grip that is too tight and a sudden jump in matches per week are the usual triggers.
Pain that eases as you warm up is common and usually manageable; pain that worsens during play, or lasts into the next day, is a reason to see a physiotherapist rather than to train through it.
Fitting it around your padel
Most players do not have a fixed match day, so the rule is simple: no heavy legs the day before you play hard, and no two gym sessions on back-to-back days. If you play league matches on a fixed day, the match-week planner shows where the sessions fit.