Jean Galea

What we need to ensure before a padel match is that we have an optimal reserve of glycogen. The process is known as carb-loading. Glycogen reserves are the body’s reserves of carbohydrates, and they will help us maintain our energy levels for the duration of the match.

Athletes engaged in exercise over a long period of time produce energy via two mechanisms, both facilitated by oxygen:

• via fat metabolism and
• via breakdown of glycogen into glucose, followed by glycolysis.

How much energy comes from either source depends on the intensity of the exercise. During intense exercise that approaches one’s VO₂ max, most of the energy comes from glycogen.

When you run out of glycogen during a match you hit “the wall.” Your body has to slow down as it turns fat into energy, and this can lead to weak legs and fainting sensations. That is why we need to make sure to take care of our glycogen levels.

For breakfast tortillas, oatmeal, bread, pancakes, waffles, bagels, yogurt, and juice are all easy-to-digest options. Many fruits are high in carbs but are also high in fiber—and too much can cause stomach trouble mid-match. Bananas are a low-fiber choice and you can peel apples, peaches, and pears to reduce their fiber content.

The main meal before the match should be taken around 2-4 hours before, and we should eat carb-based food with a high glycemic index. Having a high glycemic index means that the carbs are rapidly absorbed.  Carbohydrates are key with a moderate amount of protein, adding in some antioxidants if possible.

Try a pasta/rice dish with some lean ground turkey meat sauce, or a chicken stir-fry with lots of rice and veggies. We should be looking at between 1 and 4g of carbs for every kg of body weight, eaten 3-4 hours before the match. In the hour preceding the match, if we haven’t yet taken our full ingestion of carbs, or simply feel hungry, we can eat 30-60g of carbs. If we ate more than that, we would be risking going in with a heavy stomach that will impair our performance.

Some typical snacks for pre-match are Gatorade Energy Chews and PowerBar Energy Blasts or simply fruit.

Keep in mind that it is also very important to stay well hydrated throughout the day of your match. Monitor urine color on game day. It sounds silly, but you want it in the light lemonade or even clear shade. If you get into the apple juice shades, hydration levels are lacking.

What to Avoid Before Matches

How you fuel your body before a game or practice can still have major performance benefits. Here are some items to avoid eating as part of a pregame meal.

• Fatty foods. It seems easy, but athletes often forget to steer clear of any high-fat foods. That includes fried foods – including French fries, chicken strips, fried chicken and onion rings – and fatty cuts of meat such as hamburgers and bacon. Steer clear of high-fat foods—like creamy sauces, cheese, butter, and oils—as well as too much protein. Both nutrients fill you up faster than carbs and take longer to digest, she says. Pick jam—not butter—for your toast, tomato sauce in lieu of alfredo sauce on your pasta, and frozen yogurt instead of ice cream for dessert.
• Too much protein. Normally, protein sounds good, and it does play an important role in a football player’s overall diet, but not in large quantities before a game. So, stay away from protein shakes or protein bars. You can find a good amount of pregame protein in other ways.
• Artificial sweeteners. Be careful with artificial sweeteners. They can mess with digestion, and the last thing anyone wants during a game is an upset stomach.

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Is it time for new padel shoes? Should you own more than one pair of padel shoes? Just which padel shoes should you buy anyway? Since your shoes are the only thing that comes between you and the court surface, they’re pretty important.

If you’ve been shopping for padel shoes lately, then you know – there are tons of options out there. New manufacturers are getting into the court shoe game pretty frequently now. I dropped by my own local padel retailer this week just to buy some overgrips for my racket. Next thing I knew, I had been lured into the shoe department by all of the pretty colors and fancy designs.

The Importance of Your Padel Shoes

Why is it important to wear padel shoes?

I often see players wearing running shoes to play padel. And I bet a lot of you do too. And if you’re one of those players who feels most comfortable playing padel in running shoes, I certainly do not have a problem with that. I think you should play in whatever makes you feel like you’re playing your best padel and if it happens to be running shoes that make you happy, then that’s what you should wear.

But for the vast majority of us, it’s pretty important to wear court shoes. That is, to wear shoes that are specifically designed for padel. This is because these shoes are made to give you the support, the cushioning and, most important, the traction that you need on a padel court.

We all know that padel requires, not just a lot of running around, but it requires that you make quick starts and stops, it requires a lot of lateral movement, and so padel shoes are made to provide you with exactly the type of support and cushioning that you need in these situations. And the traction that you need on a padel court is certainly much different than you would need if you were running, even if you’re out running on a road, because you do have these short starts and stops, quick steps, small steps, longer lunging steps, and so a padel shoe is really made to provide you with the best possible shoe for those special situations.

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