How to Warm Up for Padel: A 10-Minute Routine to Prevent Injury

Most padel injuries are not from a single dramatic moment — they're from cold tissue being asked to do hot-tissue work. A proper warm-up takes ten minutes, costs nothing, and dramatically reduces your risk of calf strains, ankle rolls, padel elbow, and lower-back tightness. Yet most recreational players walk onto court, hit two volleys, and start a match.

This guide is a concrete, padel-specific 10-minute routine you can do in the warm-up area or even courtside. It addresses the joints and muscle groups padel actually loads: ankles, hips, shoulders, wrists, and forearms.

Why Warming Up Matters in Padel Specifically

Three reasons padel rewards a good warm-up more than most sports:

Explosive lateral movement. Padel involves frequent sharp cuts, sudden direction changes, and short sprints. Cold calves and hips are exactly what tear in these movements.
Repetitive overhead loading. The bandeja, vibora, and smash place repeated stress on the shoulder. A cold shoulder joint cycling through hundreds of overhead shots is asking for rotator cuff irritation.
The forearm and wrist. Padel elbow is the most common chronic injury in the sport. Cold extensor tendons absorbing impact from the first volley onwards is how it starts.

The 10-Minute Routine

Split into three blocks: general warm-up (3 min), dynamic mobility (4 min), and padel-specific activation (3 min).

Block 1: General Warm-Up (3 minutes)

The goal is to raise your core temperature and heart rate. Without a treadmill, do any of:

Light jogging in place — 60 seconds.
High knees — 30 seconds. Keep them light, not maximal.
Heel kicks (butt kickers) — 30 seconds.
Jumping jacks — 60 seconds.

By the end of this block you should be slightly out of breath and feel warm. If you're not, you went too easy — repeat one of the drills.

Block 2: Dynamic Mobility (4 minutes)

Dynamic stretches (controlled movement through a range of motion) prepare joints far better than static stretches. Do each for 30 seconds or 10 reps per side:

Leg swings — forward/back: hold a wall, swing each leg loose and tall, 10 reps per side. Wakes up hip flexors and hamstrings.
Leg swings — side to side: same setup, swing across the body. Opens the adductors and hip rotators.
Walking lunges with rotation: lunge forward, twist the torso over the front leg. 5 reps per side.
World's greatest stretch: lunge, elbow to instep, rotate up to ceiling. 3 reps per side. Best single mobility drill for racket sports.
Arm circles: 10 forward, 10 backward, then 10 small to large. Shoulder primer.
Thoracic rotations: hands behind head, rotate torso side to side, 10 reps. Critical for the bandeja and serve motions.

Block 3: Padel-Specific Activation (3 minutes)

This block primes the exact movement patterns you're about to use.

Ankle bounces and lateral hops (45 seconds): light bounces on the balls of the feet, then 10 short hops side to side. Activates the calves and stabilizers for sliding on the turf.
Wrist circles and forearm primer (45 seconds): make fists, rotate the wrists 10x each direction. Then with the racket: hold horizontally and slowly rotate side to side, feeling the weight load the forearm. This is your padel elbow insurance.
Shadow shots (90 seconds): with the racket but no ball, work through forehand volleys (15), backhand volleys (15), bandejas (10), and a few practice serve motions (5). Focus on technique, not power. This grooves the patterns and warms up the specific tendons you're about to load.

On-Court Warm-Up: The First Five Minutes

Most clubs let you spend the first 5–10 minutes of your booked court hitting before starting the match. Use it well:

Start mini-court. Stand at the service line, hit gentle volleys back and forth. This is technique-focused, not full-power.
Move to the baseline. Cooperative groundstrokes, alternating forehand and backhand, deep but not hard.
Lobs and bandejas. One pair lobs, the other practices bandeja returns. Switch after 2 minutes.
A few serves and returns. 4–5 serves each, no points yet.

Only then start playing for points. Going straight into a match cold — even after a 10-minute off-court warm-up — is a common cause of first-game injuries.

What to Skip

A few common warm-up habits that don't help and may hurt:

Long static stretches (holding a stretch for 30+ seconds before play). Research shows these can temporarily reduce power output. Save them for after the session.
Bouncing into deep stretches (ballistic stretching). Risk of strains. Dynamic mobility is the controlled alternative.
Skipping the wrist and forearm warm-up. The single most-skipped element, and the one most directly tied to padel elbow.

Cooling Down Matters Too

A 5-minute cooldown after play prevents next-day stiffness and supports recovery:

Walk for 2 minutes to gradually lower your heart rate.
Static stretches now — hold each for 30 seconds: calves, hamstrings, hip flexors, quads, chest, shoulders, forearms.
Hydrate and eat a small carb/protein snack within 30 minutes.

Adapt to Your Body

If you have a known weak spot — a previous ankle sprain, a cranky shoulder, a history of padel elbow — add an extra minute of mobility for that area specifically. Players over 40 should expect to need 12–15 minutes of warm-up rather than 10. Cold weather doubles the importance of the routine.

Ten minutes feels like a lot when you're already at the club and your court time is ticking. But one strained calf will cost you weeks. The math is easy.