Padel Nutrition: Fuelling the World's Fastest-Growing Sport
- Shrey Aggarwal
- Aug 14
- 7 min read
A player I work with lost his third match of a club tournament in Dubai 6-1, 6-2, having won his first two comfortably. He'd eaten a sandwich at nine in the morning and nothing since. By four in the afternoon his legs were still fine on the first ball and gone by the fourth.
Padel is an intermittent, repeated-effort sport played in 60-90 minute matches, often several in a tournament day. Fuelling it means starting matches with carbohydrate on board, eating quick-digesting carbs between matches, and treating hydration seriously on multi-match days, because the biggest performance drop in padel comes from cumulative fatigue, not any single game.
That pattern is the whole problem with padel nutrition. The sport has grown faster than its support structure, so players who train four times a week still eat like people who play once a month.
Quick Overview
What does padel nutrition have to fuel?
Padel nutrition has to cover a long, stop-start workload rather than a short intense one. Match analysis puts the ratio of real playing time to total match time at around 0.4, so roughly 40% of the clock involves the ball being live (Mellado-Arbelo & Baiget, Kinesiology, 2022). The rest is walking, serving, arguing about the last point, and standing still.
That sounds easy until you look at what happens inside the 40%. Players average close to 3,775m of court movement in a match, with more than 600 accelerations and decelerations and around 420m of it at explosive speed (Sensors, 2025). Mean heart rate lands near 143 bpm, about 75% of individual maximum. In amateur players roughly 90% of playing time sits in the aerobic zone.
So the physical cost per point is small and the accumulated cost across a match is not. Blood markers taken before and after simulated matches show measurable muscle damage and shifted energy substrates afterwards, in both men and women (Applied Sciences, 2023). A body that has done that once will do it again badly if it isn't refuelled.
What should you eat before a padel match?
Eat a carbohydrate-based meal two to three hours before you play, then something small in the last hour if the gap runs long. Toast with honey and a banana, oats with fruit, rice with chicken, or pasta with a light sauce all work. Keep fat and fibre moderate, because both slow stomach emptying and a heavy stomach on court is its own handicap.
Racquet-sport guidance points to a habitual carbohydrate intake of 6-10g per kilogram of bodyweight per day for players training hard, with protein around 1.6g/kg/day (Ranchordas et al., JSSM, 2013). For a 75kg (165lb) player that's roughly 450-750g of carbohydrate daily across all meals, not in one sitting. Most club players I assess sit closer to 3g/kg, which is enough to train and not enough to compete twice in a day.
The last-hour snack matters more than people expect on tournament mornings, when a scheduled 9am match becomes an 11:20am match. Fruit, a rice cake with jam, or a sports drink covers the gap without sitting heavy.
How do you fuel between padel matches?
Start eating within twenty minutes of walking off, and choose things that digest fast. Recovery guidance for repeated competition points to around 1.2g of carbohydrate per kilogram per hour in the hours immediately after, alongside protein spread across the day (Ranchordas et al., JISSN, 2017). In practice that means a banana and a sports drink straight away, then a proper meal if the next match is more than two hours out, and a smaller snack if it's less.
This is where the two-hour rule earns its place. With a long gap, eat rice, pasta or a sandwich with some protein. With a short gap, stay liquid and simple, because the stomach is still dealing with the last match. Anyone who has thrown up in a changing room at a tournament has learned this the expensive way, and it's usually a digestion problem rather than a fitness one. If you regularly struggle to eat between matches, this is trainable in the same way gut training works for endurance athletes.
During longer or hotter matches, 30-60g of carbohydrate per hour is the working range used across racquet sports once play passes an hour (Ranchordas et al., JSSM, 2013). A 500ml (about a pint) bottle of sports drink covers roughly half of that on its own.
How much should padel players drink?
Most players under-drink on court and only notice on the second or third match. There's no published sweat-rate dataset for padel yet, so the closest comparison comes from squash and tennis, where mean sweat rates sit at roughly 1.1 litres per hour in both (Ranchordas et al., Nutrients, 2023). Elite squash players finished training with an average fluid deficit of 1.2% of bodyweight despite drinking during sessions, and college tennis players lost 1.3% of bodyweight across a best-of-three match in 32C (90F) heat. Older players drink less than they need without feeling thirsty: in a group of male padel players over 65, average intake was 900ml across a 90-minute session while training at 73% of maximum heart rate, which sat just under requirement (Lopes et al., Nutrients, 2024).
Two practical rules cover most situations. Drink at every changeover rather than when you notice thirst, using roughly 200ml in mild conditions and 400ml or more once court temperature climbs past 27C (81F) (Ranchordas et al., JSSM, 2013). Then weigh yourself before and after a match once, so you know your own rate instead of somebody else's.
Sodium comes into it on hot days and long tournament days, when plain water alone starts diluting what's left. Whether you actually need a product depends on your sweat rate and the length of your day, which is the same question covered in whether athletes need electrolytes at all.
Recovery nutrition between padel match days
Refuelling for tomorrow starts with the evening meal today. Carbohydrate at dinner, protein of roughly 0.3g/kg at each meal, and enough total food to cover what the day cost. Players who eat one large meal at 10pm after a tournament and skip breakfast the next morning start the second day already behind.
Protein spread across four or five feedings works better than the same total in two (Ranchordas et al., JISSN, 2017). Yoghurt with fruit, eggs on toast, milk, fish, beans and lentils all count, and none of it needs to come from a tub.
Where padel players get it wrong
The common error is treating padel as social exercise while training like an athlete. Four sessions a week plus a weekend tournament is a real training load, and the eating pattern that supports it looks nothing like the eating pattern of someone who plays for fun on Thursdays.
The second error is fuelling the first match and forgetting the rest of the day. Nobody loses because of what happened at 9am. They lose at 4pm because of what didn't happen at 11am.
Fueletics Perspective
Padel's demand hides itself well. Points are short, the walls give you time, and the sport feels easier than it costs. That gap between perceived effort and actual load is exactly why players under-fuel it, and why the drop-off arrives late rather than early.
If you play tournaments, build the day backwards from your last likely match rather than forwards from breakfast. Know your sweat rate, know your carbohydrate target, and have the between-match food in the bag before you leave the house.
Those numbers change with your bodyweight, your sweat rate, your climate, and how many matches you're likely to play. If you want yours worked out properly rather than borrowed from a tennis article, start with a Fueletics assessment.
FAQs
What should I eat before playing padel?
A carbohydrate-based meal two to three hours before, kept moderate in fat and fibre. Oats, toast, rice or pasta with some protein. Add a small snack in the last hour if the start time slips.
Do padel players need sports drinks?
For a single match under an hour in mild conditions, water is enough. On hot days, long matches, or multi-match tournament days, a carbohydrate-electrolyte drink covers fluid and fuel at the same time and is easier to get in than food.
How many calories does padel burn?
It varies with level and intensity, but energy expenditure in racquet sports of this type sits broadly around 30-45 kJ per minute (Ranchordas et al., JSSM, 2013), meaning a 90-minute match is a substantial energy cost even though the effort feels intermittent.
Is padel a good workout?
Yes. Mean heart rate around 75% of maximum, close to 3.8km of movement and 600-plus accelerations per match make it a genuine cardiovascular and neuromuscular session (Sensors, 2025).
Research References
Mellado-Arbelo, O. & Baiget, E. (2022). Activity profile and physiological demand of padel match play: a systematic review. Kinesiology, 54(1), 51-61. DOI: 10.26582/k.54.1.6
Evolution of Physiological Responses and Fatigue Analysis in Padel Matches According to Match Outcome and Playing Position (2025). Sensors, 25(17), 5240. DOI: 10.3390/s25175240
Acute Effects of Padel Match Play on Circulating Substrates, Metabolites, Energy Balance Enzymes, and Muscle Damage Biomarkers: Sex Differences (2023). Applied Sciences, 13(24), 13281. DOI: 10.3390/app132413281
Lopes, A.J. et al. (2024). Analysis of Hydration Habits Before and During a Specific Training Session in Male Padel Athletes Aged over 65. Nutrients, 16(20), 3513. DOI: 10.3390/nu16203513
Ranchordas, M.K., Rogerson, D., Ruddock, A., Killer, S.C. & Winter, E.M. (2013). Nutrition for tennis: practical recommendations. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 12(2), 211-224. PMC3761836
Ranchordas, M.K., Dawson, J.T. & Russell, M. (2017). Practical nutritional recovery strategies for elite soccer players when limited time separates repeated matches. JISSN, 14, 35. DOI: 10.1186/s12970-017-0193-8
Ranchordas, M.K. et al. (2023). Fluid Balance, Sodium Losses and Hydration Practices of Elite Squash Players during Training. Nutrients, 15(7), 1749. DOI: 10.3390/nu15071749
