Is it possible to lower the racquet's swing weight?
- Thread starter flargosa
- Start date
eleventeenth street
Semi-Pro
i'm not 100% positive, but i am fairly certain that the youtek radical grommets are two-piece, so you could remove the black bumper guard from the white grommet strip and reattach the white grommet strip sans bumper. it would lower the swing weight to around 330 maybe, though this is just pure speculation
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eleventeenth street
Semi-Pro
other than that, i suppose you could swap out the leather grip for a synthetic, which would also decrease weight, and marginally decrease swing weight.
eleventeenth street
Semi-Pro
no. if by making the racquet more headlight, you mean adding weight to the handle, then no. adding weight, regardless of where, will actually increase the swing weight, though it may feel more maneuverable. at least i think that's how it works
BreadCrumb
New User
i think theres only 2 ways to lower the swing weight. One is the lower the weight of the racquet and the second one is to make it shorter. I dont think you want to second option so you will definitely want to look for areas where you can cut down on the weight.
eleventeenth street
Semi-Pro
distribution of weight
SteveI
Legend
Far and away the best way to do so. If indeed the racket in question has a two piece bumper/grommet set-up, that is a great, clean way to reduce SW. This topic has been explored many times. Try doing a search
Brad N.
New User
Irvin
Talk Tennis Guru
Swing weight is inertia and the only way to lower inertia is to more the weight closer to the axis of rotation (10 cm from the butt for SW) or by removing some of the weight. Simplest way is to choke up on the handle, effectively moving most of the racket’s mass closer to you hand. Another way is to cut out the center of the butt cap so you can move the butt cap farther up on the handle. This does the same thing as choking up. Another option is to remove the butt cap cut a section off the handle and reinstall the butt cap and grip.
Lowering the center of mass will lower the SW if you don’t add mass to lower the center of mass. By moving you hand closer to the COM you effectively lower the COM. If you add mass to lower the COM all the inertia in the head is still there and it takes just as much torque to accelerate it, and you must move the additional mass.
Lowering the center of mass will lower the SW if you don’t add mass to lower the center of mass. By moving you hand closer to the COM you effectively lower the COM. If you add mass to lower the COM all the inertia in the head is still there and it takes just as much torque to accelerate it, and you must move the additional mass.
Firepandas
Rookie
Who in the world would actually just straight disfigure their racquet and make it shorter? That seems so insane. At that point, just get a different racquet.
Dartagnan64
G.O.A.T.
Irvin was pointing out the physics of it, not necessarily suggesting it as the best option.
Anyways my suggestion would be to get a lighter grip on the handle and use thinner gauge strings. Of course I recently swapped out a synthetic grip for leather and the static weight went down. Not all leather grips are heavier than synthetics as I learned the hard way.
Irvin
Talk Tennis Guru
Correct, modification to the racket is a bad idea IMO, but sliding the butt cap up by modifying the cap is a good way to try it out. I also don’t think lowering the SW by 5 points will make much difference at all.
Lowering the racket weight by changing the grip will reduce weight but at the same time it raises the center of mass. Overall it has little effect on SW. lowering the racket weight by changing to lighter strings has a relatively large change in SW because the weight you’re removing is farther from the axis of rotation.
Irvin
Talk Tennis Guru
You lose but cap / grip contact and feel. Moving the butt cap up does the same thing but maintains butt cap / grip feel.
Dartagnan64
G.O.A.T.
Agree, but there is only so much you can do to lower SW and getting the racket lighter is about it, short of doing things like shortening the handle or taking off the bumper guard which are quite a significant alterations.
Irvin
Talk Tennis Guru
You’re assuming the SW is keeping you from accelerating the racket on serves. When serving you should be pronating you’re wrist more so than on other strokes. If you‘re not having issues with other strokes maybe your racket‘s TW is causing the problem. You’re going to find it very hard to lower TW. The HYRP has a relatively high TW of 14.5.
Are you suggesting shortening the racquet?
Irvin
Talk Tennis Guru
I would NEVER EVER (again) cut a racket hairpin to shorten it. There is no way to return the racket to its original shape if you cut off the harpin. BUT you can effectively shorten the racket by moving the butt cap up on the hairpin. Many butt caps have small spacers built in to hold the racket off the hairpin by a few mm. Removing those molded in spacers ruins the butt but that is all. Replace the butt cap if you don’t like it and the complete racket is back to its original shape.
If a few mm is not enough to shorten the racket as much as you want you cand cut the center of the butt cap out so it slides up on the hairpin (and pallet.) Then you replace the grip. This effectively allows you to choke up on the racket to the same point every time you grip it, gives you the same grip feel, and it is reversible.
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