Forehand & Backhand - From Scratch to Pro

Do you find that your forehand and backhand basic shots break down under pressure? The answer is not more matches. It's almost certainly something technical, and it might be a bad habit that has slipped into your game. In this video, we're going to break down the skills of the forehand and backhand and build it from the ground up. My name is Sandy Farquharson, founder of The Padel School, and for the last 15 years I've been coaching thousands of players both in person and online. My background is in biomechanics. I did my degree and master's in sports biomechanics, and so I find it fascinating to watch what the pro-level players are doing, understand what and why they're doing it, and to be able to break that down to teach recreational club players how they can improve their shots as well. Now before we dive into the technique, let's understand the goal of the shot, and it is very different to tennis, for example, the forehand and backhand. Our objective at the back of the court in padel is to take the net position. We're not trying to hit big passing shots, we're not trying to smash balls through our opponent, we don't need a lot of power. The length of the court is 10 meters on our side, 10 on the other, so 20 in total. It's not as long as a tennis court, we are not trying to hit past our opponents. Our objective at the back is to hit a good enough and slow enough ball for us to come to net. So that is our objective with our ground strokes, both on the forehand and the backhand side. So we want to take the emphasis away from power and more around consistent, accurate shots that are repeatable, and that is one of the most important things, is that you can repeat your technique consistently, therefore the result of your shot is consistent. Let's talk about the importance of preparation and balance within both of the shots. So from your ready position, a good ready position is on our toes, light on our feet, body weight over our toes, racket in front of us like this. And when the ball comes, the first decision we make is the trajectory of the ball. Is it going to my right-hand side? And for me as a right-hander, that's a forehand. Is it going to my left-hand side? For me as a right-hander, that is my backhand. And immediately I see that ball going in that direction, I'm immediately preparing my racket, My racket moves really early to be taken back, and then my feet get myself into a good position. Now, the footwork, the bodywork, which is the turning and the preparation, and my racket work are part of my preparation. So that ball goes to one side, I am light on my toes, my racket goes back, my body turns in order to be ready for either of the sides. It's the same on the forehand as it is on the backhand, that early preparation phase. One more thing that is the same on both sides is getting the distance from the ball. So when we're in this position, we want to have a nice distance from the ball so we can swing. We don't want to be reaching for the ball, we don't want it jammed up into our body, we want a nice distance and swing from the ball. And our feet are about balance and stability as opposed to body weight transfer. We don't need that because we're not generating power. We're looking for balance and distance from the ball, and so much of this has to do with footwork, like getting your feet into position. Unlike tennis, we're not driving up with the ball, we're not using our legs for that. We're using light, fast steps to get ourselves into position, and this is so important regardless of your level. If you're a beginner right the way up to national level players, the better your footwork, the better your preparation, the better your shot, the more consistent the shot, the more accurate the shot. And that's exactly why on thepaddleschool.com we've created a Faster Feet for Padel course, a course you can do at home, follow along videos in your garage, in your garden, to get you faster with your feet so that when you step on court you're doing all of this movement pattern automatically and therefore playing better padel. Sign up today, you can get a 7-day free trial. Go and check it out and start making your feet faster today. Right, now let's break down the biomechanics of the forehand first. So we're in our ready position, we've already talked about a split step. When our opponent contacts, we turn, we keep the elbows close to the side of our body, we point the racket back, and then we are essentially moving our feet depending if it's a ball in front, which we hit the oncoming ball or off the glass, the technique should look fairly similar for both. The only thing that changes is your footwork, either to the ball or after the glass to move forward with the ball. Okay, but when we're in this position now, we're looking light on our toes, we are adjusting from this elbow position in here. This is our full takeback if you want to hit Softer or you want to block the ball more, you can take it less far back and you can even hit semi-open stance. But if you've got a little bit more time, you want to turn your feet so you're side on to the ball, and you go from this take-back position with a smooth horizontal swing. Now, if you want to hit a lob, you're going to go more underneath the ball, low to high. A chiquita, you might also go a little bit low to high. If you want to hit a more horizontal shot, you would go more across the ball, and you want to have your takeback generally depending on the shot at the height of your contact. So if it's a lower ball, you would come down low. If it's a medium height, you would come medium. If it's a higher ball, you would come higher, depending on where you want to contact the ball. Again, the footwork is all about good positioning so you can be in a nice position to contact that ball with a space between you and the ball, and that way you can be consistent with your swing, you can be accurate with your shot. When it comes to the backhand side, it's the same. You're in your ready position. Again, we didn't mention it earlier in the video, but you want to be in continental grip for all of these shots. So continental grip here, ready position. Your left hand takes the racket back, you follow Follow it with your footwork, bodywork, so that you're all in a good position. And then again, you're judging your distance, little steps to get into a position. And again, the same with the backhand. Now, if you're someone that slices everything, maybe you're from tennis and it's easier for you to slice, you do need to learn to play flat. Because if you wanted to hit a chiquita, a soft shot to the feet, it's easier to be more accurate with that flat shot. If you play everything with With slice, there's low margin for error because you have to go lower over the net to be more difficult for your opponents. So we're in this position here, and you want to go forward and contact just in front of your right hip. Now, if you're someone that's learning to play flat on this ball, you can even take the arm slightly in front of the body like this for that contact. You don't need to, to keep it locked into your body during the swing phase. So you would loosen the arm up, you want a slight bend, you don't want it like rigidly straight, slight bend so that you can contact that ball in front. This is a repetition movement, you need to build up the reps, you need to have lots of volume when it comes to this shot, and actually we built a whole train-at-home series on thepadelschool.com where you can actually practice all of these techniques at home, off the court, in your garden, in your garage, somewhere where you can actually practice this technique. And it can be as simple as shadowing, like shadowing exercises or ball exercises that you can build up consistency of movement. The more you practice it off court, the more reps you get in, the more comfortable you are going to feel when you step onto the court. So head to thepadelschool.com if you want to check out the those train-at-home exercises. But on this backhand, we're getting light into the position here. Again, the same low takeback for a low contact, medium, high. And again, we're, we're going through that ball to contact. Now when it comes to which shot to play, flat or slice, as a general guideline— and it varies depending on opponents and, and players— but But as a general guideline, if you are contacting the ball above the net height, so which is typically above waist height, chest height, shoulder height, for example, you can come down and hit the slice. Like, because there you're going to try and find a gap maybe through the middle. If you get the rebound, it will die off the rebound. And from here, you can be accurate with the slice without taking high risk. If it's lower, generally you want want to play flat. Sometimes you might put a little bit of topspin on the ball, and I advise that at a more advanced level, not necessarily when you're learning. When you're learning, you want to try and play flat on both sides and then really reserve the higher balls for the slice. Same on forehand. Again, you want to be in this position slicing when the ball is a little bit higher. When playing the forehand and the backhand, One of the hardest concepts for players to understand is this idea of fast feet, staying compact with your arms on both sides, but then when it comes to swinging the racket, your arm and your wrist stay fairly loose and pliable. Yeah, so when you squeeze the racket, you really are only squeezing it on the contact, and you need your hand and wrist to be supple in order to be able to control your racket head and therefore control the direction of the ball. And this is exactly why all of these train-at-home exercises, the ball skill exercises that we do with our members, are so valuable, because you can train this control with the racket head off the court. You can get good technique, good positioning, good distance, and then practice controlling that ball, because like we said the whole way through the video, padel is not about power, it's about placement, control, and consistency. And so you want to make sure that when you're in this position and you can contact the ball, you control the racket head, you're able to hit soft on that. And then when it comes to the follow-through on both shots, the follow-through is just a deceleration of the racket. So if you're hitting a lob, typically the racket will go up on the follow-through If you're going through the ball more horizontal, it will go horizontal. The follow-through is not something that you need to focus on, but be aware that it is a deceleration of the racquet and it indicates the swing path of your shot. So only if it's looking strange and maybe your coach might say, oh, your follow-through is down, therefore your swing path is not right. But you as a player, it's not something that you need to focus on. Focus on good positioning and preparation up to contact, and then just let the racket decelerate itself. So we went into depth on the technique there for forehand and backhand. If you are someone that finds yourself in pressure situations making mistakes on these shots, I've often found that for players it helps to focus on footwork. If you are fast on the feet, you are generally getting yourself in a good position to hit that ball. Often the players that struggle are the ones that are slow on that, they put their heels down, they're a bit slower to move to the ball, and therefore they're reaching and they swing at it, therefore they make the mistake. So that would be my advice if you're playing a match and you're making mistakes, focus on the footwork and playing a simple ball. Just aim down the middle for a nice big space and keep it simple, and therefore you will hopefully make less mistakes. The forehand and the backhand are very simple shots that you want to get right from the beginning. I know lots of intermediate or advanced players that still don't have them right, and it's affecting their game later on. If you want to know what level you are, we've designed a player assessment where you go through a series of questions that takes less than 5 minutes. It tells you what area of your game to focus on and what level you're at.