Last year I got talking with a decent player who I see at the courts and he had been rehab'ing an injured shoulder for a while - before playing, he had a whole warmup routine that he did with one of those resistance bands. We got chatting and he plainly pegged his injury on the lighter racquets he had taken up with earlier in the year.
After that conversation, it occurred to me that the only time I had ever experienced some real pain inside my shoulder, the semi-scary kind that's more than just a strained muscle, was when I was in my long racquet search and tried switching to a frame that was over an ounce lighter than the ones I was looking to replace. In the following months I had a couple more chats with guys who had ailments pop up on them when they switched to lighter gear - sort of like when you learn a new word, then hear it in passing five or six times, right?
Now when I talk about racquets here on the boards or face to face with people I meet, I always throw in the big caution when someone wants to get something lighter than what they've had for a while. Lighter racquets are great if you're used to them, but I'm convinced that it's risky to pick one up and play full speed with it if you haven't adjusted your muscle memory away from swinging a heftier stick - suddenly it's a whole lot easier to overswing in the same way that throwing a wiffle ball can throw your arm out if you're used to the resistance of a baseball for the same throwing motion.
![[d]ragon](/data/avatars/m/26/26312.jpg?1574364787){kind=avatar}
