The power smash in padel is a fun winning shot where you put a lot of power into the ball. The goal is to hit the ball fairly flat, topspin is not required (as for the kicksmash). It is much easier to learn, and a lot of players can perform it intuitively without much practice. That is however not the case for my smashing journey, as doing any kind of smash has been a real struggle for me during my entire padel journey.

The main problem I see players having with their power smash, or any smash for that matter, is consistency. You have players that want to smash every easy ball but hit errors 50% of their attempts. With a lot of moving parts and torque, many things can go wrong. Hit the ball a bit too early or a bit too late and most likely you are hitting the net or shooting the ball through your entire facility.

The benefits of a flat power smash

• Fairly easy to learn if done methodically
• Can provide you with a ton of winners, avoiding fatiguing long rallies
• Comes with a ton of variety in angle and trajectory to make it virtually impossible to defend
• Can be disguised well so your opponent has no idea what is coming
• Makes your opponent "afraid" to lob you, causing them to play out of their comfort zone

The downside of the flat power smash

• Most likely the shot causing the most injuries in padel
• Hard to do consistently (I see a ton of players missing 50-80% of the shots and losing the point)
• Poorly executed smahes that actually "go in" make a easy situation for your opponents to attack

What makes a good smash?

• Consistent body positioning
• A solid base with feet well planted on the ground
• A loose body and wrist - tension makes it worse, not better
• Hitting the ball at the highest possible point and in front of you

How to perform the power smash

The first you need to do is to assess the lob coming at you. Is it short enough and do you have time to prepare for the shot? If you are unsure about any of those you should probably play a different overhead shot and avoid the risk. In padel we have tons of choices for overheads which is great. Save the flat smash for the ideal situation for it to increase your chance of success.

Once you have determined that it is the right shot it is time to get your body in position. Adjust your position so the ball will drop right in front of you, not towards any side. You also need to turn your body so your shoulders are pointing towards where you want your smash to go. You need to make that choice actively, because if you want the ball to go out of the court you need to angle your body towards the back corner (but not entirely) so it can bounce on the floor, then high on the glass and eventually leave the court over the opponents side. Another benefit of trying to get the smash out of the court is that if you don't succeed, the ball will go towards the fence on your opponents side and make it a lot harder to return. Even mediocre smashes can become winners when hit diagonally, bouncing into the fence after hitting the back wall.

If you instead want to hit the smash back over the net, it is crucial to hit almost directly forward in the court, making it travel and lose speed as little as possible to give it a chance to bounce high over the net. There is few worse feelings than having your power smash end up in your opponents being able to pop the return after the back glass directly out of the court, because your smash did not have the proper angle and speed to fly over the net high enough.

Once you are in position, you need to:

1. Get in a trophy position, meaning raise your non-dominant hand and lower your elbow (see picture)
2. Bend your knees so you can explode upwards and forwards to bring all the kinetic energy into your wrist
3. Supinate and flick your wrist as you impact the ball flat

How to train the smash

The actual training of the power smash is fairly easy - have your partner or ball machine feed you easy lobs so you can get some repetitions in performing the shot. Be cautious of the different parts of the shot - getting in the right position, preparing your body (trophy position etc), using your non-dominant hand as your aim guide and please read the paragraph below to avoid getting injured.

Before you start doing repetitive smashes, please make sure you warm up your body and in particular your wrist, elbow and shoulder thoroughly! This is absolutely essential.

I recommend training this shot towards the very end of your session - and keep it short! Quality over quantity. Focus on the technique, not on hitting hundreds of smashes. A couple dozen shots (with breaks) is enough. Analyze the results and make notes on what to focus on next time.

Avoid getting injured

Getting shoulder and elbow injuries are common after performing flat smashes - I can't even count the number of players in my local club that have had to reduce or completely stop smashing, even ending up not being able to play for months after smashing too much and too hard with a poor technique. Try to learn the basic technique and practice it. Actually, when you see the pros do it, it doesn't even look like they are doing it that hard and that is because the fluiditiy and looseness in their shot makes it much less taxing on the body parts involved.

As most coaches and online videos will tell you, your body should be loose and the same is true for your wrist and shoulder. It should be a fluid movement and not forced at all. It is more of like a "whip" where all the energy is accelerating from slow to fast and be accelerating into the shot and releasing at peak speed when you impact the ball.

If you go full power from the beginning of performing the shot you will actually impact it slower than if you accelerate gradually through the shot and is at max speed when hitting the ball. This gives me a lot of overlapping vibes with other sports, for example disc golf which was the previous sport I was hooked on. Again most recreational players were really forcing the throw with all of their tense muscles, while you could see the pros throwing the frisbee 2 or even 3 times the distance in a fluid motion that whips the frisbee along, accelerating up towards the release. Try to keep this in mind. In disc golf we used to call it "slow is smooth and slow is far", indicating that a smooth controlled motion will give you the better distance.

What about the racket for a power smash?

When it comes to what racket is good for the power smash it is a bit tricky - you can see the professionals have amazing power smashes with any kind of racket. That is because their technique and timing is so good that even though they have a softer and less top-heavy racket, they are able to produce enough power to make the ball fly with vicious speed and accuracy.

Main racket characteristics to give smash more power:

• Hardness of racket surface - the harder the more power will be transferred into the ball due to the lack of the trampoline effect
• Top heavy / balance point - the more top heavy the more torque will be transferred into the ball

The problem with the characteristics mentioned above, is that they are equally negative for many recreational players as you often want a softer racket for better control and feeling and the trampoline effect helps you when defending (you don't have to hit as hard to get the ball over the net). Being top heavy can also reduce maneuverability, often has a smaller sweet spot and is more rough on your joints and particularly your elbow during impact. Avoiding tennis elbow is important.

I would never recommend a recreational player, or even lower intermediate to upgrade to a harder top-heavy racket just to improve their smash, when they lose out on control and the trampoline effect which is more suited for their level.

On the flipside, I just recently upgraded from a semi-soft to a semi-hard racket and saw an instant 20-40% increased power on my smashes. Now I just need to adapt my defensive shots and lobs because they are coming up too short due to the lack of the trampoline effect.

TLDR on the flat power smash

The flat power smash is an amazingly satisfying shot to master and few feelings are better than trashing your opponents by blasting a ball out of the court or high over the net. But beware of injuries! Train the shot, master the technique and you will be rewarded with beautiful winners on the court and a healthy shoulder.

Good luck!