How to Blend In-Person lessons With Online Resources for Rapid Growth

It’s difficult to find a good padel tennis coach! It really is, even in countries that have had padel for a LONG time. It takes time and energy to find the right person you immediately connect with who understands your level and what you need to do to improve. It also takes a decent understanding of the coaching process to really know if a coach is good or not.

When you do find a great padel coach, in this industry with so few experienced coaches it can be difficult to get sessions as they are often busy. Due to the demand good coaches are often very busy, it can be hard to get the long term focus and attention you need to improve your game.

Coaches give up to 7-8 hours of lessons per day on court, so you are one of 40-50 students during their week and most players have lessons once every week or 2. It does mean that it is rare for the coach to provide that player with any further support outside their lesson, they aren’t able to watch their matches or their practice games, they don’t have time to analyse videos of their shots.

Padel tennis is so different to many other more technical sports

For most sports you need lessons to play the game, so your ratio of lessons to matches is much more in favour of lessons. Which is great for the coach, because they can work on techniques without the player getting into bad habits between.

Padel tennis on the other hand, players enjoy the wonderful game sometimes for years before their first lesson and then when they do have lessons they play dozens of times between lessons. This makes it very difficult for a coach to change those habits they pick up.

For these reasons, not only is online support advised, but to properly transform your game it is needed!

This is also a great way to learn, dissecting your own game and really working out where your improvements need to be made!

For these reasons, we recommend mixing in-person training with online resources. This article is your how-to guide to padel tennis. 

The sweet spot is just the right mix of in-person training and online resources.

First, it’s imperative you find the right padel coach who will help you improve your technique. In-person training is crucial because your coach will see exactly what you need to correct and (hopefully!) will help you develop the right swing, footwork, technique, etc.

Second, use online resources to gain knowledge about specific aspects of padel. We have plenty of free resources on our YouTube channel, which is a great start point. This is a free library of tutorials that you can use to watch the general techniques needed in padel. Each week we post a different video covering all the topics of padel tennis and covering the different levels in the game.

If you are a bit more serious about your improvement you could look into our premium online platform, that’s where the advice gets much more specific. The courses and roadmap makes sure players know what they need at their level, the ‘shot fixers’ allows players to send in videos of their technique and get individual feedback.

For the players we work with this is the feature that really changes their game. They get advice about their techniques when they want it! No waiting for their next lesson and trying to explain it to the coach. It actually means they can go to the lesson and tell the coach exactly what they want to work on. Or if they don’t have a lesson lined they can focus on the tips in their next social game.

You can also guarantee that the advice is good, because some of the best coaches in the world are analysing the techniques!

Using online resources to develop your padel tennis game

Whatever you use, don’t overwhelm yourself by watching all the content in one sitting. Our YouTube stats would thank you, but we know it takes focused practice to see real improvement. Whether you are just getting started with padel tennis or you’ve been playing for years, to improve you need to narrow your focus to improving your game methodically.

The online platform is setup to take you step by step through the techniques, tactics and the mental side of the game. But if you are using YouTube, you have to be really selective about what to focus on and which parts of your game to work on.

For example, let’s say you want to improve your bandeja. Many people coming from tennis, squash, or table tennis don’t have any familiarity with this unique-to-padel shot, so it takes a multi-step process to master it.

It’s extremely difficult to put this technique into practice without the aid of a coach and a bucket of balls to practice. But if you start out with no idea what a bandeja even is, it will take extra time out of your session for your coach to explain it.

The absolute best way to approach this is to video your current padel bandeja or smash, post it in our ‘shot fixer’ groups and receive the feedback from our coaches. Once you have received the tips to improve it, you can either follow the courses specifically designed to improve the bandeja or search videos on your own on YouTube to find those bits of advice that suit you. The you can go into your padel lesson with the tips you’ve been given and see how a coach can help in person. But if you don’t have lessons, no problem, on the platform there is also a drills section which you can use to practice with a friend! There are so many features on the platform, designed to skyrocket your padel!

Record your own padel tennis games

Pro tip: record yourself during your coaching session and/or your next match. Seeing yourself play is painful at first, but those who record themselves and adjust accordingly see rapid improvement.

The next time you play, you’ll see that you aren’t doing the bandeja technique properly by raising your elbow or moving your feet into the right position. Your coach was right! Whoops.

Recording yourself is useful because you can play it back and gain awareness. This improved awareness is a skill that will carry over into other areas of padel and make you a better overall player.

Instead of being that player who hits ball after ball after ball out of the court exclaiming, “Oh no!” forty-five times a match, you’ll be able to more quickly correct your own mistakes.

This personal empowerment and improved self-awareness will quickly raise your padel level AND will make your in-person coaching sessions more impactful.

Instead of asking your coach, “What should we practice today?” Tell them what you know you need to work on. Coaches love working with players who understand their own faults and actually want to improve and take advice. Learning how to intentionally plan out your next steps for growth is vital.

Make it a priority to improve your game on and off the court. The best players take it upon themselves to make improvements based on their weak areas and work at it until they improve.

Find the right coach to learn proper technique. View online resources to enhance your learning between lessons. Grow in self-awareness and correct your mistakes. Become an unstoppable force on the padel court.

It can also be a huge help to watch the professionals play and you can either watch the World Padel Tour or Premier Padel Tour or the A1 Padel Tour – they all show padel tennis being played at the highest level of the game!

Often the first step is understanding that you need padel lessons to improve your game! And at The Padel School we are very happy to be your online coach and support you on your exciting padel journey!!

Cheers,

-The Padel School