Overhead shots in padel are crucial to becoming a well rounded padel player. There are a bunch of them available with different difficulty levels. From defending lobs with slow bandejas to more aggressive viboras and of course; the killer shots; kicksmashes and flat (power) smashes. Some are more important than others and will make the biggest difference in upping your skill level to beat your local opponents. Incredibly difficult and technical shots like the kick smash is a shot that requires tens if not hundreds of hours of practice and that most players will never achieve.

The bandeja is a perfect starting point for your overheads

The most basic and useful shot is the simple bandeja - it is the easiest to learn and will help you defend your net position against lobs from your opponents. You can hit it soft to give yourself time to recover your net position, or harder to be more aggressive with it. You should hit it with slice so it won't bounce high off the glass. Read more about the bandeja on our dedicated bandeja guide.

Move on to the vibora (the snake) for a more aggressive overhead 

With the vibora you will hit the ball farther away from you on your side compared to the bandeja, and you will also add some sidespin to the ball. This will make it harder to defend for your opponents, leaving them in a position to give you a weaker ball you let you finish the point.

Get some winners with a flat power smash!

The flat power smash is the easiest smash to learn in padel. It is also the most likely to cause you injuries as it involves a lot of torque produced by your shoulder and elbow if executed with poor technique. Hit the ball flat high and in front of you by supinating your wrist in the last moment and produce some fast flying balls out of the court or hopefully high enough back over the net to make it impossible for your opponents to return it. Videos and instructions available in our flat power smash guide.

Start practicing rulos to eventually move towards your kicksmash...

The rulo is a often overlooked shot by many in favor of the maybe more impressive kicksmashes, but it is without a doubt a very powerful shot. It is also an excellent progression towards progressing in your kick smash journey. The main reason for this is that in many ways a rulo mimicks both the body positioning but also the wrist action when performing the shot. The kicksmash is about generating massive amounts of topspin and sidespin at the same time, and even though the rulo is with much less force, the gesture is very similar.

The rulo is by itself also a very powerful shot to defend your net position, because it allows you to play an overhead instead of an awkward high backhand volley which rarely produce good results. Also if executed correctly, it will bounce diagonally towards the opponents fence, giving an unexpected bounce which can become a winner in itself. The third benefit of the rulo is that you can play it far back in the court instead of letting the ball bounce and most likely lose your net position.

The holy grail: The kicksmash

As I mentioned previously, the proper kicksmash is a shot probably less than 5% of the padel players out there will ever achieve. I have personally trained this shot on my own for over 50 hours and it is still barely in its infancy, starting to see some real results. These are the most impressive smashes you see the professional circuit players execute. It requires excellent timing, body positioning and wrist action, and is often referred to as the most difficult and unnatural shot in padel! As someone who works on achieving it, I will 100% agree to that statement. The professionals can do this from even behind the service line if they get time to prepare, and it is equally satisfying to watch every time.

We have created individual articles and guides for all the different overhead shots below. We have also hand picked a few videos related to overheads in general from our favorite Youtubers. You can of course also go to the different overhead shots directly and we have both details on execution, training instructions and hand-picked Youtube videos for those as well. Good luck in mastering your padel overhead journey!