Hi, look at this web page below at 1min 16 sec, and You will see the racquet shaking. It is pretty good image.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg9ysITwz58
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg9ysITwz58
That is what Alzheimer's does to older people.
Now assume you have a stiff light racquet and all that movement is twisting your wrist and elbow back and forth.
This video is proof of how great it is to have a flexible racquet.
Great post. And the AL and steel will eventually fail due to fatigue - carbon fiber, not so much.graphite-made things do flex, which is the beauty of it. materials like steel, aluminum and titanium flex a lot less, and in a less organic (like wood) manner, which is why you won't see those metals used to performance racquets in large quantities. older sticks like the t2000 and the arthur ashe have no modern equivalents because they just didn't play that well.
if you want to see flexing, watch what happens when hockey players take slapshots. the RA rating for hockey sticks go from 75 (extremely "whippy") to 120 (very stiff).
That is the point. We think that Federer uses a 68 RDC racquet. And the vídeo shows it twisting a lot.
I wish they'd show a video of someone using a stiff racquet. It would probably show their arm doing all the twisting and warping instead of the racquet... and then people will finally realise they should use a racquet with flex.
But 68 RDC is not stiff enough?
I don't believe Federer's racquet is 68. Not when his string tension is like 48 mains, 44 crosses. He'd launch everything out the court. I reckon its about high 50's - low 60's. But thats just me.