How to Choose the Right Frame Stiffness For Your Tennis Racquet



Posted: Thursday, April 29, 2010

by Mike Ferty
http://www.racquetpro.info/

Although not many people have realized, the stiffness of the frame have a relatively importance in choosing racquets as if the racquets frame stiffness coincides with the level of comfort for the player. Choose the degree of stiffness with caution as wrong stiffness might strongly affect your playing style and might cause permanent damage to your body.

The stiffness of the frame in a tennis racquet is directly proportional to its deliverable power. A stiffer racquet bends less, thus depleting less energy from the ball where as a flexible racquet bends more, resulting in more energy loss. Although the major effect for frame stiffness is on power, its effect on control and comfort cannot be neglected. A stiff racquet might result in hitting the ball too far on the court. However, the most important aspect that I must stress upon is that it may have a probability in injuring the user's wrist and elbows as it delivers a higher impact force. Also, stiff frames provide less spin to the ball so if players like to apply spins to the tennis ball, they should look for more flexible frames. One must also know that if the frame is too flexible, however, it might lead to problems in returning the ball as there would probably be little to know impact force to the ball.

Due to certain health issues associated with the frame stiffness, it is very important that one must choose the frame stiffness wisely. If the user is feeling pain or even discomfort on the wrist or even any part of the arm that is handling the racquet, consult with a professional to see if either posture or the frame stiffness needs to be changed. Don't ever try to accommodate the pain or discomfort as it might lead to permanent damage to your body.

Mike Ferty is a fellow mechanical engineer graduate from a Canadian university. He focuses on designing sports equipment especially in swing sports such as tennis racquets.

Please visit his site for more information about his articles:
http://www.racquetpro.info/

This Article has been viewed 648 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.