This column first appeared in the Men’s Health email newsletter. The Optimized Man is a biweekly series from our editorial director as he tries out the latest, greatest, and weirdest health and wellness innovations so you don’t have to. Sign up here to get the next one.
I’VE TRIED TO build a life free of shoulds. I’m fine with woulds and coulds and their vague promise of actionability, but when you get into shoulds, you get hung up on stuff like guilt and doubt and all kinds of second-guessing. I really should work out.
I really shouldn’t eat that. You think I should try and sleep more? Shoulds, put plainly, are a problem, and this year I’ve been staring down two different shoulds that won’t quit staring back: I should probably do more cardio, and I should probably get a hobby.
I’ve never been much of a cardio guy or a hobby guy, but with evidence tying both to better physical and mental health outcomes, my list of excuses for not doing either is growing short. And I think I’ve found a solution in one of the fastest-growing sports in America. It’s called padel (pronounced pa-DEL), and you might’ve come across it if you’ve been on vacation lately in Central America or southern Europe (or somewhere really exotic, like Miami).
I discovered it last year on a cold winter’s night, and after playing for two hours on an indoor court and emerging sweaty, sore, and exuberant, I can report that it combines everything I like about tennis, racquetball, and squash into one hard-hitting, heavy-breathing sport. You can go ahead and YouTube the basics, and here’s the gist: You’re playing on a court that’s about three-quarters the area of a tennis court, with high glass walls along the back, some wire fencing on the sides, and a net down the middle. Instead of pickleball’s slow and endless dinking, a padel ball whirs fast off your midsize racquet (also larger and heavier than pickleball’s), and the action requires you to move.
Even though it’s a doubles sport (which typically requires less movement than singles, ‘cause there’s two of you), you’re constantly chasing the ball like it’s that little golden bug in quidditch. Sprint, stop, swing, pivot, repeat. (You can also hit the ball against the back wall to launch it in reverse, back over the net, which requires a massive swing.) The first time I played, I showed up wearing sweatpants and a puffer vest over a T-shirt. Within minutes of starting I had sweat through my T-shirt, and by the end of the first set, I had sweat through the seat of my sweatpants.
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