Can You Really Improve Your Padel Game Online?

Tom, in today's episode we are going to talk about something that means a lot to us, obviously, as we've built The Padel School. And it's an important question for those wanting to learn the game of padel. Do you think that players can improve by learning online?

Yes, players come to us and they say, Sandy, Tom, I can't learn online. I can only learn when I'm on court with a coach, with a racket. hitting the ball. And from our experience, we, we know that there is so much more benefit to online learning. But I think that today we're going to talk about some of those beliefs that players have and also our own opinion on learning padel online.

I think part of the problem for players is this understanding of, of the game and the skills and how they can improve their game. That they, they have an image, particularly those that are I think not from a high sport background, if they're just recreational players, they have an image that they need to be on court so that a coach can move their racket so that their contact is in a different place. And I think that really coaching in general is, is not like that, right? It's, it's almost diagnosing where, where the player can improve and setting them in the right direction. for their padel journey so that they can accelerate their learning and become better players.

Yeah, lots of players are, are in a, in a stage of their padel journey where they're playing lots and lots of matches. Maybe they're getting in-person coaching, but this, this training, this, this, the importance of actually training connects the two together. And players think that if I get coaching and I play matches, that's enough. And, and what they're really missing is that, that key training aspect in between. connects the two, but also is gonna skyrocket their level. And that, that is where online training can come in, right?

Yeah. And I think it's difficult because it's getting the expert, the right expertise to improve your level. Like if we go to the club, we see players advising each other on, oh, you should do this. This works for me. You should do this on your bandeja because you know that this is my idea. And to some extent, because the game is emerging and it's such early days, A lot of coaching is like that, really. I, I've seen it happen so many times in different countries when the game is emerging that you give advice to a few people, then suddenly the club manager is like, hey, you know what? That's actually a really good bit of advice. You should be a coach. And then it's like, oh, I'll go and do a, a weekend course and come back with a piece of paper. Now I am a coach. And then you are giving advice to players. And really it's like, there's a difficulty that a lot of players don't have access to expertise, not only to diagnose their game, but also to, like you say, to give them the right bits to train so that they actually can improve. If you are someone that wants to immediately start improving your game, you can join thepowerschool.com. You get a 7-day free trial. You'll get the Instant Advantage Bundle, which is the footwork, the ball control, and the consistent confidence, as well as the roadmaps designed for the different levels in the game, and you get an international community of coaches and players that are all there to help you improve.

Well, it's tough for players, right? Because how, how do you identify a, a coach that is credible? Because the sport is emerging so quickly, and like you say, there are— a coach will go and do a, a 2-day certification, get a piece of paper, now they're a coach. And we see that even with content online. I think there's a big misconception for, for learning padel online, which is I'm just going to binge-watch hours of content, I'm going to go on, on YouTube, and I'm going to go on social media. I know how you feel about the credibility of some of the, the content creation and that some of the tips out there are actually not, not correct and actually not good for players to, to follow, but there's so much information out there now and There's, there's different stages to, to learning a skill in padel, which is what we're going to talk about today. But before we do, there's a big myth out there at the moment, which is learning padel online basically means I'm going to watch hours of content and I'm just going to go on the court and try and implement all those changes I see.

Yeah, and it's free, it's great. I can go and I can type in bandeja and I've got 12 different teachers. And actually, I was having this conversation with another content creator recently and What happens is content creators, they start by vlogging, like doing vlogs. Oh, I'm going to go to a training in Spain. Follow my journey. And what happens is that the content creators, not that they run out of content, but they do a load of vlogs and they think, right, well, I need to do, I need to give something more. I'm going to start giving tips. And yet you're looking at it as a credible coach going, well, A month ago, you would you were learning how to do the basic back wall, and now you're suddenly giving giving tips on on that. And I I think it's it's really difficult because on socials it's often based on on metrics, right? And you get very entertaining vlogs, and some people are fantastic at vlogs, but those people are now giving educational advice, and you think well you haven't had coaching yourself, or you maybe you've had a few little bits of coaching, but you don't really understand the sport, and now you are. passing that on to others. And I just think it's— it can be detrimental to the player but also to the game if we don't keep that level of standard as a coach that is, is the one giving the expertise.

Yeah, let's talk about understanding your game as a player because there's different ways to learning padel online, which we're going to talk about in a moment. But let's also talk about having that understanding of your game and why that is so important to learning online.

Well, I think it's important wherever you learn. Like if you're learning in person and the coach says you need to do that, your first question should be why. Like if they haven't explained, ask why. And then you need to basically process that and put that within your game. Okay, I need to do this because my bandeja is bouncy and I need to keep it lower so that I can recover the net and neutralize the point, as an example. But you need to understand why you need to be doing things within your game. And it's the same when you learn online. If you've identified Identified a weakness in your game that you feel like, I make too many mistakes, or I make the ball too easy for my opponent, whatever it might be, that's what I'm gonna focus on. And then identifying what is the, the root cause of it.

I think that for, for a lot of players out there, absolutely, it's, it's understanding your game, but it's also understanding how to use online coaching and online training. Because with social media now and, and Reels and Shorts and, and it's, you can flick through, I'm sure. People listening to this, probably that the padel algorithm has got you. So you're, you're going through your feed and there's reel after reel of how to learn this shot, how to learn this shot, how to learn a shot. And I think at times it can actually be overwhelming. And, and perhaps players have, have a match where they have a tough loss and they think, oh, my, my bandeja cost me there, so I'm going to go and watch 3 hours of bandeja tutorials on, on YouTube or scroll through social media to try and find that content, and then I'm going to go out tomorrow and implement the 50 tips that I picked up. And actually what happens is, as we know, it becomes overwhelming. They go onto the court and actually your bandeja is worse now because you're overthinking it and you— it's not learning the right way. And we're going to talk about now actually the different stages to learning a skill and how online integrates into that.

Yeah. And maybe just before we go into the stages of the skill, it's almost worth saying that As people that do create content, so much of it, particularly as you go up the level, it always is, it depends. So, so whenever you're hitting us, you know, you're teaching something for the bandeja and you say, right, you should mainly play your bandeja cross-court and the contact point should be here, blah, blah, blah. It, but it does depend. I mean, it depends on the type of lob, the game situation. There's so much nuance to it. So, so when you watch these videos online, You've almost got to get in the head of the coach to understand what they're saying and who it's for. And I think that that's one thing that when you are watching that, you have to consider, okay, you know, who is, who is this for? And it's part of the reason that we have created the roadmaps on our platform is that we have a basic roadmap for those that are wanting to build really good foundations in the game because they are not having the same Bandeja advice, as are advanced players that are competing more. Like, you've gotta understand which level you're at so that you can focus on your roadmap. And YouTube is, and, and Instagram and all the socials, they're, they're, they're different. You, this week we post a video on the advanced vibora. Next week it might be how to get good court position as a beginner. And, and you watching that, there, there's no easy path. You, you type something into YouTube and it's like you said, it spits out.

Yeah.

12, 15 different, you know, tutorials. But that's exactly why we built the roadmaps, right? It's so that people could have a path and it's a structural system they can use to, to elevate their game.

Let's, let's stick on this bandeja issue because it, maybe it resonates with a few, few people listening. I know for a lot of the players that we coach, it, it is a problem, the, the bandeja. And let's, let's use that as an example of how someone would, would use online coaching, at least the platform that we've created How different it is to say, just going on, on YouTube and watching 15 different clips. So let's imagine someone's played, played a match, their bandeja is, is horrible. They come onto our platform. How is our platform different from the free content that, like you say, you just get a library of, of bandeja lessons?

Yeah, so let's paint the picture and talk a bit about the platform. But, but if you don't have access to the platform, this, this is almost how you should approach online learning, I think. When someone signs up for us, they immediately have access to our instant advantage bundle. So that's footwork, ball control, and like consistent confidence. And part of that confidence is is clarity and journaling and and getting really clear on what skills you need to work on. And and to be honest, quite often with a bandeja, it's footwork related, right? So so much of it is being in a good position, being at the right distance from the ball, getting back early enough. etc. So you've had your session with the bandeja. Ideally, you've already gone through the footwork. Ideally, it's already part of your warm-up. It's already part of your weekly routine to do this footwork and, and to improve that. But it's then really identifying, you know, what is the error. Now, you can go into a Shot Fixer section within our platform, or you find the roadmap that you're on. Like, each roadmap has a section for the bandeja. If you're a beginner player, we go through Beginner tutorials on where, where you need to, to get to. But then I think a big difference for our platform is the amount of content that we provide for off-court training. Like that, that's the key is understand where you need to work, like where the focus is, and then build up the muscle memory and the routines off the court so you can actually get those footwork patterns. So you're in a good position each time and you don't have to think about your footwork when you're on court. Then you introduce a ball so you can again do this off-court. You do some, some shadowing to get into position, do the bandeja with your racket, then you use a ball and you're actually doing exercises at home to hit the ball, to practice that contact. These are all done in your own time, like, so you can control the environment. And then gradually you build back to doing some drills, like with your coach or with a training partner where they are feeding you the bandeja, you go practice, and you're practicing The kinetic chain essentially of what you've learned for the bandeja in a more realistic situation. Now you're back on court and you're doing it, you know, in drills. And if you're on a platform and you might have access to our drill book or, or as part of the roadmap, you can have access to some drills and then gradually you, you build it back into your game. Yeah.

It's all about, it's all about foundations, but also ingraining quality repetitions, isn't it? Because. The tutorial videos are great. When you go on there, you say, okay, I understand the why, I understand the theory and the concept. But so many players watch that and then go on to the match court and think, oh, now I understand the why, it's all just going to happen for me in a match if, if I think about it. But we know that consciously thinking about technique on the match court, on the court at all, you're going to end up forcing the ball. Perhaps players even listening to this or watching this right now have tried that, where they've gone into the court and they, they know what they need to do, they've got tips in their mind about what they need to fix, but it doesn't work and actually ends up being worse because you're, you're forcing it, you're overthinking it. So what, what our platform does, which I think you, you mentioned there, is around building those quality repetitions. And so much of it can be done off the court, but there's, there's a big, there's a big gap between understanding the theory And going on to the match court. And that is what our platform takes you through, is all of those different steps. Like you mentioned, the footwork with the racket, with the ball, exercises you can do at home. These are all building those quality repetitions that are going to take you from, I understand what I need to do on the Bandeja, and I've now trained hundreds of quality reps, hundreds of footwork reps, hundreds of racket reps. So when I go onto the court, it's actually automatic, and your body knows exactly what to do. Like that That for me is, is, is the missing piece because everyone can say, here's 3 tips for the bandeja, but to actually take a player through that process, that is a completely different story. And I think that is what separates our platform from just general content.

Well, and I think as well, it's, it's steeped in like biomechanics, right? Like, I mean, my background, like my degree and master's is in human performance and biomechanics. And I mean, you know how I like to kind of dive into the skill and break down the kinetic chain of The shot itself. And, and when you break it down into singular parts, how can you train each part of that skill in order to, to improve? And you take the bandeja and we, we look at, say, you know, the footwork and the bodywork, the racket work. All of that is— it's all part of a chain, and different players are going to need different fixes.

Yes, absolutely.

But if you understand the chain and you know how to break the mechanics down so that you can actually Work on those different areas, that's where you see like the acceleration in terms of improvement. And that, that's what our members are seeing is, is basically a breakdown of, you know, how can we learn a skill effectively so that they can bring it into their game?

And for a lot of players on our, on our platform, is it's a bit of a revelation, isn't it? Because up to this point, they've always, they've always followed the approach of play a match, watch content. Go out and play a match. And, and for a lot of players, just going and watching content is a, is a big thing because so many players out there are just, just playing matches and expecting to get better. And, but there's the next stage, and, and to go one better is to not only watch the content, understand the theory, but to actually go through that process. And I think that once you as a player understand those stages, it is a bit of a revelation because you're like, oh, okay, I If I actually want to build this skill, this is how I do it. And it doesn't, doesn't take long. Like, we always talk about little and often. Really, it's, it's a few minutes. It's spending a few minutes in your, in your physical warm-up before you play, doing some exercises. It's at home doing a few-minute exercise. These aren't hour-long sessions that you have to do to try and implement these reps. These are little and often reps, but they're going to make a massive difference because you're going to go out onto the court. And that bandeja that felt forced and, and, and felt you were overthinking on it, you're going to be automatic and you're going to go out there and it's going to feel instinctive.

Well, and the beauty of it is you can do it when you want, right? You don't need to book a court or you don't need to find 4 people that all are available at the same time as you. You can book a— you do it yourself, you do it at home, and you do it as much as you want. Like, like you can actually really get through the roadmap by doing the trainings and doing those sessions as As much as you want. And, and so I, I think that digital learning is, is going to be seen as, in a way, more valuable than in-person learning because you, you can actually accelerate your game way faster because you have access to all these lessons. You have access to all of these footwork exercises and drills and things that you can do off court. Whereas when you go in person with a, with a coach, you, you get an hour and you do what you can do. Whereas here it's at your fingertips. Like you really can. Yeah. Accelerate your game by doing as much or as little as, as you want.