How to plan strength and running around a padel tournament

If you have a padel tournament at the weekend, treat the matches as the main training load of the week. Keep a strength session early, make any run easy, and leave the day before the first match free of demanding leg work. The number and length of matches are uncertain, so plan the days after the tournament once you know how much you played.

Why does tournament week change the plan?

A weekly social match has a known place in your diary. A tournament can mean repeated matches with short gaps, late finishes and more time on court than you expected. Aspetar’s sports science guide to padel describes the physical demands of repeated play and recommends a gradual build-up for recreational players who increase their court time.

That changes the value of a Friday leg session. Heavy squats that fit comfortably before a Sunday social game are a poor trade if your first tournament match starts Saturday morning and you expect several rounds. Keep the strength habit, but place the harder work earlier in the week. Our guide to arranging easy and hard days gives the wider scheduling logic.

Where should lifting and running go?

This illustrative week assumes a Saturday tournament, a player who already lifts twice and runs regularly, and no injury or medical restriction. It is a scheduling example rather than a prescription.

Day	Session	Reason
Monday	Full-body strength	Your main lift sits furthest from match day
Tuesday	Comfortable run, 30 minutes	Keep the run conversational rather than adding intervals
Wednesday	Shorter strength session, moderate leg work	Maintain the routine without chasing a personal best
Thursday	Rest or an easy walk	Leave room if Wednesday’s legs feel heavy
Friday	Rest; check kit, travel and food	Arrive with time and energy to warm up
Saturday	Padel tournament	Count every match as training, including later rounds
Sunday	Rest or gentle movement	Decide after seeing the actual match load

If the tournament starts Sunday, move the rest day to Saturday. If you play on both weekend days, remove the optional Friday run rather than squeezing it into a gap. Already following a more regular court schedule? See how to place strength around padel for the ordinary training week.

What should you take between matches?

Take water and food you know you tolerate. The schedule can change after a long match or a delayed court booking, so pack a simple carbohydrate option such as a banana or sandwich. Eat a proper meal when the gap allows, and pay more attention to fluids when the courts are hot. The Aspetar padel guide discusses flexible carbohydrate intake and hydration around matches whose duration is hard to predict.

Don’t copy a professional player’s gram-per-hour targets into a casual afternoon. The tennis nutrition review addresses longer competitive matches and the difficulty of timing food when players have more than one match in a day; its numbers are not a personalised padel prescription. Start with the practical question: will you have food and drink available when the next match is called?

What happens to the next week’s training?

Check what actually happened on court before restoring your normal plan. An early exit followed by a comfortable Sunday is different from several long matches and a late finish. If your legs are still heavy on Monday, shift the next hard run or demanding lower-body lift and keep an easier session instead. The guide to managing a missed workout explains how to resume without trying to repay every session.

Telos Fitness lets you choose your sports, weekly hours and training focus, then plan across disciplines with sessions that can be reordered as your schedule changes. Its fuelling guidance and 14-day plan recalibration are useful when court time varies from one block to the next. Put the tournament in your diary first; let the rest of your training fit around the matches you actually play.