If you were to go to any club in the world and spend 5 minutes watching each court, you would notice a common denominator: most players make mistakes in very simple situations. Why does this happen?

Fernando Belasteguín, number 1 in the world for 16 years, commented in an interview that the most important skill in padel is consistency, the ability to perform at a regular level without ups and downs, without unforced errors.

In this post, we are going to reflect on consistency, recognizing that it is a complex problem that we work on daily in our academy, but there are certain aspects that can be improved to help you become more consistent.

Immediate reward

Nowadays, more than ever, we want things immediately. We are losing the capacity to wait for a reward. With one click, you can get anything material you desire. The study “Delay of Gratification and Cognitive Control” https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1972-20631-001 by Walter Mischel at Stanford demonstrated the difficulty of acquiring the ability to resist an immediate reward to obtain a larger reward in the future. Children preferred the immediate reward (a cookie) to the future one (several cookies). Delayed gratification was associated with better academic performance and life skills. How capable are you of delaying gratification during each point in padel? If you have the opportunity to win, do you go for the immediate reward? If we always delay the reward, we would never win. The key is in decision-making.

Ability to concentrate

Being 100% focused on a task is a very difficult mission. In the digital era we are in, it is even more complicated. Every 5 minutes, we are interrupted by a social media notification, a phone call, a thought that invites us to check WhatsApp, or a notification on our smartwatch to check the number of steps we have taken.

To be consistent in padel, the first thing you need is to have 100% focus on the game. Any distraction will make you send that ball into the net. In our experience, we can affirm that players have an extremely low focus capacity.

Training with intensity

When you are able to concentrate, the intensity with which you do things skyrockets. You notice that you are alert, that your legs move on their own, that your focus is on the game, and that you run for every ball. You don’t have time to get interrupted by a harmful thought because you are all in the game.

You will surely identify yourself if I tell you that most players do not train with high intensity; they go at 60%. And if they manage to be at 100%, it only lasts for several minutes.

Ego

The majority of us think we are better than we are. Thinking that we are capable of doing more things than we actually know… Is an advantage or a disadvantage? It can make us try shots that we can’t control, assuming great risks…a disadvantage. But it also plays a big role in mindset: Djokovic, from a young age, was convinced that he could beat everyone… an advantage.

Excuses

Inconsistent players will find excuses not to be consistent. “I like to play difficult shots”, “being consistent is boring”, “I didn’t have a good day today”.

All of these are excuses that the player has to justify themselves. The reality is that they are not mentally prepared to suffer, to play one more ball, to stay in the game even if things are not going well.

Habits

Consistent players are able to repeat the same action on many occasions. Unlike inconsistent players, they do not get bored if they have to execute the same action, they even enjoy it.

Most inconsistent players miss the ball when they have a little time to think, when their head asks them to do something extraordinary or make a different decision instead of repeating the action that is leading them to consistency.

What can coaches do to help players be consistent?

Consistency is about working on the player’s mind. We need to work on it daily; it must become a habit. Being consistent is a mindset: I want to be consistent from warm-up to the last point of the training session.

The coach should not get bored before the player; if the player cannot be consistent, keep going, and if they still cannot do it, keep going… until they can. Don’t get bored before your player does.

We do not have a formula to make players consistent, as formulas do not exist in complex problems. However, we do work consistently to help players work on their mind:

  • Each session has a specific part dedicated to consistency
  • Don´t focus on the word consistency but where to put the ball
  • Don´t try to control the shot but the commitment with the easy direction
  • Unforced errors are counted to make the player aware
  • Videos are made to show the lack of intensity with which they train
  • The player is encouraged to be consistent by rewarding or penalizing mistakes

Consistency is a principle of padel; we do not know any good player who is not consistent. We recommend you to train consistency consistently.