Jean Galea

Health, Wealth & Happiness

Five Different Ways to Improve at Tennis and Padel

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Here’s a quick list of five different ways you can improve at tennis or padel. Go through them whenever you feel like you’re stuck in a rut and you’re not improving much.

  1. Movement and positioning – understanding the footwork patterns to be the most efficient on the court and can your recover to the right positions.
  2. Fitness – can you maintain good technique throughout the whole point and the whole match due to being in optimal shape?
  3. Mental shape – can one point cost you an entire game or set? How tough are you mentally?
  4. Strategy and patterns – can you figure out your opponents’ strengths and weakness and can you figure out patterns to stress their weaknesses?
  5. Technique – All four points above are interlaced with this last point. It’s really important but not the be-all-and-end-all. Technique gives you a larger array of shots you can hit and the ability to hit them consistently, but you need the other four points too.

Isoinertial training

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This week I had the opportunity to train at a center here in Barcelona (GlobalPerformance) that specialises in isoinertial training methodology and equipment.

This is a type of training originally developed for outer space use since it doesn’t rely on gravity as the traditional weight machines do.

In the video below, you can observe some exercises that can be done with the pulleys and flywheels used in this type of training.

The nice thing is that the machines could be attached with a monitor that took note of each concentric vs eccentric movement of my muscles and measured the variation between them. In just one session I was able to observe the weak points of my body and that gave me a very good indication of what I need to be working on for gaining further strength while at the same time preventing injury.

This type of training is excellent for tennis and padel training as there’s a lot of emphasis on correct posture and using the whole kinetic chain effectively for every movement, and this can transfer very well to our oncourt performance.

Padel Etiquette and Rules For Non-Umpired Matches

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During friendly matches and most amateur tournaments padel matches are played without an umpire. The qualifying rounds of World Padel Tour don’t have a referee either. This means that the players will have to judge certain things themselves in an amicable manner. Let’s talk about some of these things to keep an eye out for and how to behave.

If one of the players hits a shot whereby the ball hits another player, it is usual to apologize, while the person who got hit will acknowledge, knowing it’s part of the game.

At the start of the match it is usual to wish the other players a good match, and at the end all players are expected to approach the net and shake hands amicably, with both sides congratulating the others and thanking them for the match.

  1. Each player is responsible for all decisions in her half of the Court. She should be completely honest on all “calls” but, if in doubt, she should give her opponent the benefit of the doubt and play the ball as good. You should not play a let.
  2. It is your obligation to call all balls on your side, to help your opponent make calls when the opponent requests it, and to call against yourself (with the exception of a first service) any ball that you clearly see out on your opponent’s side of the net.
  3. Any “out”, “let” or “fault” call must be made immediately (ie. made before either an opponent has hit the return or the return has gone out of play); otherwise the ball continues in play. “Calls” must be verbal and clearly audible to the opponent, followed by a signal if necessary. “Lets” may be called by any of the participating players.
  4. On all court surfaces except clay (see (g) below) if a player incorrectly calls a ball “out” and then realises that the ball was good, the point should be replayed on the first occasion (involuntary hindrance) and the point lost on each subsequent occasion (deliberate hindrance). In the case of a point winning shot, a let would not be played.
  5. When returning service, the partner of the receiver should generally call the service line for her. The receiver should generally call the centre and side service lines.
  6. If players cannot agree on the score, they should calmly discuss the points/ games that are the areas of disagreement. If they cannot reach agreement they should replay only the points or games in question. All points or games which the players agree on stand eg. Two players cannot agree on whether the score is 40-15 or 30-30, but agree on the winner of the first, second and fourth points. Therefore only the third point needs to be replayed.
  7. Players are prohibited from checking the mark of the ball on their opponent’s side of the Court, unless invited by their opponent to do so. Ball mark inspections are only permitted on clay courts. On clay courts if a player incorrectly calls a ball “out” and then realises that the ball was good, the player who called “out” loses the point.
  8. Where a ball interrupts play, either by rolling/bouncing onto the court, and/or creating a visible interruption behind the court, a let should be played.
  9. If a player hinders her opponent it can be ruled involuntary or deliberate.
  10. When a player has created an involuntary hindrance (ball failing out of pocket, hat failing off, etc.) the first time a let should be called and the player should be told that any such hindrance thereafter will be ruled deliberate.
  11. Any hindrance caused by a player that is ruled deliberate will result in the loss of a point.

If there are any situations that you’re unsure about, let me know and I’ll do my best to clear any doubts.

The Trap of Trying to Improve Your Skills During Matches

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Timothy Gallway spoke about the inner game of tennis in his two books on tennis psychology several decades ago, although all the principles remain true to this day.

He observed that we think of ourselves as one person, but when playing tennis or padel (and certainly in other areas of life) there really are two selves in play; self 1 and self 2.

Self 1 constantly tells the other part what to do. It seems to know everything there is about tennis – how to bend the knees, watch the ball, follow through and so on. And then there is the other part, Self 2, who is a silent doer.

And yet, the Self 1 doesn’t trust Self 2 much and even takes things in its own hands and starts moving the body, tightening all sorts of muscles and makes the arm go where it thinks it should go. Since all the fluidity and timing is gone by now, the arm usually mishits the shot and Self 1 gets one more chance to degrade Self 2.

[Read more…]

How to Improve Hip Strength and Mobility for Padel

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Your hips are essential for proper padel form, so we need to make sure they’re both strong and have excellent mobility.

Here’s a video introducing the concept of hip rotation mobility and an assessment to see where you’re at. Whenever you attempt to improve something in your body, always start with a good assessment followed by thinking about your objectives, then implementing daily habits in order to reach your goals.

Here’s some padel and tennis specific hip work:

Here is another post about hip stretching, with very helpful photos of each exercise:

https://www.self.com/gallery/hip-stretches-your-body-really-needs-slideshow

 

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Jean Galea

Investor. Dad. Global Citizen. Padel Player.