Tennis players, but also those of squash or badminton, sometimes tend to consider the padel like a beach sport, technically and physically easier than their favorite discipline.

It is both true and false. In tennis, it is necessary to acquire a minimum of technique before being able to make long exchanges, whereas the padel allows even beginners to have fun faster. Still in tennis, the distance to be covered by a player is greater than in padel, because the surface of the court is greater: counting three meters back behind the baseline, each singles player will have to cover approximately 125 m². Conversely, two players of padel have 100 m² of surface to cover (not counting exits), i.e. 50 m² per person.

Size isn't everything

But the size of a court is by far not enough to quantify the physical expenditure caused by a sport: badminton and squash courts are much smaller than a tennis court, but these sports are considered more demanding, especially at the cardiac level.

Other parameters are taken into account, in particular the recovery times between exchanges. We know, for example, that the effective playing time in tennis is only around 20 to 25% on average; it may be more on a slow surface like clay, or much less on a fast surface. Extreme case: on the grass of Wimbledon, with the rapid and low rebound, we play on average 7 minutes per hour, or 11,5% of the time!

Au padel, because walls return the ball and players cover the court more easily, points last longer. The actual playing time, according to a Spanish study conducted in 2008, is there more than 49% of the time: in short, the player is in action for half the time.

Heart rate and calories

Another way to measure physical expenditure: heart rate. Several studies on this subject have concluded that the heart rate during a match of padel is around 140 beats per minute (BPM), with peaks at 180 BPM or even higher. Values ​​comparable to those of a singles game of tennis, during which the average heart rate fluctuates between 140 and 180 beats per minute. A squash match is slightly more demanding, with frequencies included between 162 and 177 beats per minute.

Without going into further details, we will quote one last figure: the number of calories burned in one hour during a match. Because we are on the move there most of the time, the padel eliminates up to 600 calories (*) per hour of play. This is a quarter more than the caloric expenditure generated by one hour of tennis in doubles and the equivalent of that of a singles.

And if the physical expenditure of part of padel is not enough for you, you can always increase it by training on a half court with two, diagonally (or a full court, with two rebounds allowed). In this case, you will play twice as many balls and burn more calories. Let's go!

(*) Of course, the energy expenditure varies according to the weight of the player and the intensity of the session.

After 40 years of tennis, Jérôme falls into the pot of padel in 2018. Since then, he thinks about it every morning while shaving… but never shaves pala in hand! Journalist in Alsace, he has no other ambition than to share his passion with you, whether you speak French, Italian, Spanish or English.

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