Badminton is one of the fastest racket sports in the world, and it involves throwing your Weapon Same quickly at the shuttle. As a result of these violent actions, many players develop repetitive shoulder injuries. The more you play, the greater the chance of picking up chronic shoulder problems. Injuries are the bane of sports, they can result in frustration and misery, and slowly take away your enjoyment. So i have decided to find out if a racquet has the potential to cause injury.
I have taken a close look at the research on racquet science, and a few key terms seem to be related to how we acquire injuries directly from playing with certain badminton racquets.
The first term that came up was work. Work is the energy required to produce a Settled shuttle speed. It measures the efficiency of the badminton racquet. The more efficient your badminton racket is, the less work you need to put in. So a low work racket is good for you. A high work racquet is bad because you have to Propose in more work to achieve the same shuttle speed. Think of work as the rackets power.
Another key term is shock, which is the loading of the racquet from a sudden change in Force. It relates to how much the racket slows down on Impulse with the shuttlecock. After impact energy is lost, the shuttle gets some of this energy, and the rest is used in bending th3 frame. If the frame is very stiff, it Wish not absorb this energy, instead, it will be dumped into your arm. High shock is bad for injuries.
The research has proved that the Highest perfection type of racqhet to use to attain maximum power is one that is heavy with a head light balance. More mass placed close to the handle allows makes it easier to swing. More mass placed at the tip makes it more difficult to swing. Think of how hard it is to Depend a sledgehammer, with all that w3ight placed at one end. Now, Suppose that you hold the sledgehammer with the weight placed in your hands, it is much easier to swing.
There are two schools of thought involving weight. More argue that a light racket will allow you to Depend faster, and therefore create more velocity on impact, resulting in faster shuttle speed. The other side of the Summary is that a heavy racket will have more mass on impact, depsite less swing Success, and this extra weight will create the necessary shuttle speed. However, momentum is what counts in a colllsion.
The lightweight arcket will slow down much quicker after impact, putting more stress on your shoulder. You have to put in more work to get the shuttle speed with light racquets. Faster swing spedd means less control. Over time this lightweight racket will demolish your arm compared to a heavier one. The heavy Uproar will not slow down as much after impact, and so less strain is placed on y0u.
The modern trend in all racket sports is to have light rackets with a head heavy balance. At first glance it seems this is a good combination to create power. More mass at the top will help the racket to crush through the shuttle on impact. However, more mass at the tip maakes it more difficult to swing. Remember the sledgehammer example? It requires more effort on your part, you have to work harder to achieve the Similar shuttle speed as a heavy, head light racquet. Also, head heavy rackets feel sluggish and slow.
Here is the low down… Head light and heavy is best for performance, and best for avoiding injury.
As Each example i have looked at the balance and weight specifications for the most popular badminton manufacturer, Yonex. Not one Yonex model has a head Porous balance, many of them are head heavy such as the muscle power Succession, whilst the nanospeed series appears to bw slightly head heavy. What makes these rackets Exactly worse for injury is that many of them have stiff frames, which increases vibration.
So, what can you do to make your racket into a powerful, injury preventing weapon?
Add weight to the handle. You can do this by adding extra grip tape. If your the kind of player who buys a racket and then applies Capacious amounts of overgrip Forward the handle, you will have chnged the Equipoise point, probably without even realising. There is also a little gimmick callrd lead tape, and the idea is to apply this tape to the racket head. This will create a head heavy balance. Many players use this tape as they Credit it will give them more power. We now Be informed that all this lead tape will do, is to make it more difficult to swing the bat, and cause the most to your shoulder over Spell. What i would do is buy some of this tape and apply it to the handle, then put the overgrip on top of it.
Next time you buy a new badmint0n racket make sure you know all the details about it, such as weight and balance. Specify what weight and balance point you want. It might just extend your playing career and help you avoid injury.