bobombom
Rookie
Hello all,
I just wanted to share something I decided to try the other day. The title sounds much more sophisticated than what I actually did. Much to my dismay, over the past few months, I have been dealing with tennis elbow. I never thought it would happen to me, but unsurprisingly, my arm was not as indestructible as I had hoped. With the hopes of improving my arm pain, I perused almost all of talk tennis looking for handle modifications (I don't think this particular type of insert has ever been discussed on these forums). I had originally decided to do a silicone modification just to see what all the fuss was about, and I actually had the tube of silicone in my hands at the Home Depot while walking towards the line when I saw a section for piping insulation. There were pieces of foam ranging from low density to high density, and the high density foam was soft almost like memory foam. Since a piece of foam was much more of a temporizing measure than silicone, I decided to purchase the foam instead. I also purchased some putty to increase the weight, since the foam itself wasn't too heavy.
I cut the pieces of foam into longer strips (that I could squeeze into the handle) that weighed around 2 grams each. After removing the foam that came with my racquet and the nails that I had embedded, I squeezed the pieces of insulating foam through the handle with a flat head screwdriver. After they had been sufficiently inserted, I used the putty to bring it to my desired weight.
I went ahead and hit around a bit, and much to my surprise, I could hardly feel any vibration. I was wondering if it was all in my head, so I pulled out a matched racquet that I had not added the foam to, and the difference was pretty marked. There was not really a difference in feel, or any addition of a "rubbery feel" or anything like that. The only difference I noted was a clear decrease in the amount of vibration. Balance stayed the same as it was easy to manipulate the weight. I obviously can't compare this to silicone, as I have never tried it before, but I personally consider this modification to be a success.
I wanted to post pics, but due to my lack of web savvyness, I will have to delay posting pics until I figure out how. Not to mention, the pics won't be wow-ing anyone by any means. Hope I can inspire some people too scared to try silicone to give this a go.
I just wanted to share something I decided to try the other day. The title sounds much more sophisticated than what I actually did. Much to my dismay, over the past few months, I have been dealing with tennis elbow. I never thought it would happen to me, but unsurprisingly, my arm was not as indestructible as I had hoped. With the hopes of improving my arm pain, I perused almost all of talk tennis looking for handle modifications (I don't think this particular type of insert has ever been discussed on these forums). I had originally decided to do a silicone modification just to see what all the fuss was about, and I actually had the tube of silicone in my hands at the Home Depot while walking towards the line when I saw a section for piping insulation. There were pieces of foam ranging from low density to high density, and the high density foam was soft almost like memory foam. Since a piece of foam was much more of a temporizing measure than silicone, I decided to purchase the foam instead. I also purchased some putty to increase the weight, since the foam itself wasn't too heavy.
I cut the pieces of foam into longer strips (that I could squeeze into the handle) that weighed around 2 grams each. After removing the foam that came with my racquet and the nails that I had embedded, I squeezed the pieces of insulating foam through the handle with a flat head screwdriver. After they had been sufficiently inserted, I used the putty to bring it to my desired weight.
I went ahead and hit around a bit, and much to my surprise, I could hardly feel any vibration. I was wondering if it was all in my head, so I pulled out a matched racquet that I had not added the foam to, and the difference was pretty marked. There was not really a difference in feel, or any addition of a "rubbery feel" or anything like that. The only difference I noted was a clear decrease in the amount of vibration. Balance stayed the same as it was easy to manipulate the weight. I obviously can't compare this to silicone, as I have never tried it before, but I personally consider this modification to be a success.
I wanted to post pics, but due to my lack of web savvyness, I will have to delay posting pics until I figure out how. Not to mention, the pics won't be wow-ing anyone by any means. Hope I can inspire some people too scared to try silicone to give this a go.
