We are fortunate enough to travel around the world to give clinics to players of all levels from beginner players to advanced players. There’s one thing that stands out to us every time we give our clinics. And it’s a huge reason why many players may experience a padel improvement plateau in their game.
The Padel Improvement Plateau
During our clinics we work with many players from a variety of sporting backgrounds. From zero sporting backgrounds to tennis backgrounds, squash backgrounds or other sporting backgrounds. We find that people who have played racket sports before pick up padel very quickly due to their hand-eye coordination and racket skills. As a result, they have very few lessons – instead opting to play mostly matches and training games at their club. They’ve got to a high level within their club, making up the ‘advanced’ group and winning many of the social tournaments the club holds.
However, the same players also come to us to say they really struggle to step up to that next level to beat better players – and they simply don’t know why they can’t seem to make that jump. They also start to feel their level is plateauing and week-to-week they don’t see the same rate of improvement in their game that they experienced when they started the sport.
So What’s The Solution?
The answer lies in one word: Fundamentals. Players who decide not to get coaching (online or in-person) early on in their journey, typically don’t learn the technical fundamentals well enough to avoid a padel improvement plateau down the line. We understand many players may not have access to high quality in-person coaching which is why online coaching can be a great option to complement your training.
We always stress the importance of learning the fundamentals when starting the game, particularly when learning the glass, the overheads and groundstrokes. The irony is that many beginner players – and actually many players from non-racket sport backgrounds – typically get coaching early on and therefore keep improving at a steady rate.
On the other hand, those players from racket sport backgrounds – who choose to wait a year or two to get coaching because they’ve hit a plateau – are usually the ones who then struggle the most to improve because they haven’t got the correct fundamentals in place. Further still, changing ingrained habits can be super tough once they are learned! The result? A tough job for the coach and frustration for the player!
The good news is that these plateaus can be avoided! If players receive high-quality coaching advice in the early stages of their padel journeys to learn the fundamentals – regardless of their racket sport background – they will avoid those dreaded padel improvement plateaus. And there is extra emphasis here on ‘high-quality coaching’ because receiving the right coaching advice is a crucial ingredient to this!
That’s a huge reason why we developed our online training platform in the first place to give every player that picks up a racket access to high-quality coaching advice – wherever in the world they may be.
We’ve seen incredible player transformations through our online membership because our members have the right coaching advice at their fingertips. For more information on our platform check it out here.
Avoid The Plateau Trap
Remember: the plateau trap can be avoided! Focus on the fundamentals and you (and your padel) will be glad you did in the years to come.
