electrical tape

Discussion in 'Grip' started by uwewong, Jun 19, 2017.

  1. s_mair

    s_mair Regular Member

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    Holding the racket further up the handle has a far more significant effect. It reduces the effective racket length between the center of rotation (your hand) and the head and hence reducing the leverage effect by a lot. Effectively, what we are all doing by holding the racket higher is to reduce the swing weight and hence making the racket indeed faster and easier to move. Those 10 g of "counter weight" at the handle are negligible in relation to the leverage effect.
     
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  2. speCulatius

    speCulatius Regular Member

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    Simon says....

    ... all the correct things. I admit I haven't done the math in a while (some years ago, we (that is one other badminton player who studied physics and me) did it pretty thoroughly for fun in between physics lectures), but I doubt the outcome would change if I did it again.

    Don't trust what you think you feel. It might give you the feeling that it's different with a thicker grip, but like @s_mair pointed out, that's not due to the weight, but holding it differently.

    That's why I'm repeating that it's comparable to the placebo effect. We've had that discussion here so many times, that I didn't think it was necessary to go into the details once more.

    Holding the racket further up the cone easily takes off 3 cm off of the effective length. With a balance point around 30 cm, even less measured from where you hold the racket, that's >10% difference, so it's equivalent to adding almost 10 g in the middle of the racket, not at the handle.
    That's the easiest way to approach the numbers, but even if you do the math for different weight distributions, taking everything into account, it doesn't change too much.

    The human perception is flawed in many ways, here's the most recent example I saw:



    That's about acoustics, a while ago I posted on that was about optics and it gets even worse when it's about self perception. As a coach, I cannot count the times when players told me that they were doing what I told them to do until they saw a video of themselves proving them wrong.
     
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  3. ChocoChipWaffle

    ChocoChipWaffle Regular Member

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    I don't know the exact dynamic between perceivable head heaviness and how your grip rests in your fingers, but does that mean adding thickness to the grip can somehow lessen how head heavy a racket feels in hand?

    Because I do recall adding different types of towel grips that were both significantly lighter and thinner than my usual ones, and afterwards, my MX90 3U (very head heavy), seemed significantly harder to maneuver. It wasn't a matter of a small change in feel, the racket literally went from "the head heaviness is kind of weighing on me" to "wristy shots like emergency backhands are virtually impossible because of how heavy this thing is at the head." Like, I know for a fact that this change wasn't something that could be explained by a placebo, because it became so drastically head heavy in feel that I still remember how the racket feels in hand to this day, and it's almost been over a year since I last touched it.
     
    #23 ChocoChipWaffle, Jan 12, 2021
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2021
  4. s_mair

    s_mair Regular Member

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    You can only know anything for a fact for which you have actual facts available. You know - measurements, data, these sort of things. A feeling is per definition never a fact.

    And once again: You have felt your racket to be more or less head heavy. The racket itself did not significantly change it's (measureable!) swing weight. So even if you've felt it that way, this does not mean that the racket actually was harder to maneuver.

    Look at it that way - placebo is not a bad thing in any way. So if you feel better with a thicker grip, then go along with it and enjoy that more comfortable feel. Everybody has a favourite grip setup with which we feel most comfortable. But bottom line, it does not change anything about the racket's measurable swinging behaviour.

    And I will leave it at that, we have gone through the same cycle now more than once and everything in that regard has been written by now.
     
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  5. magicaluni123

    magicaluni123 Regular Member

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    A big problem with having discussions like this is that there just isn't a lot of good research when talking about modifying badminton frames. I mean the closest we really have is the PTT, or Physics and Technology of Tennis - https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Technology-Tennis-Howard-Brody/dp/0972275908

    There is a section in the book about how the grip impacts how people play. I think it talks about the force couple? Anyways, I feel like a lot of this talk, although it is interesting, is just not gonna catch on much. I think the biggest reason is that not enough people care and the ones that do are a significant minority. Plus, when the dead weight/standing weight of a racquet is so light (at 90ish grams), the science matters much less than in the case of tennis where racquets are anywhere from 340 to 400 grams

    at a quarter of the weight of tennis racquets, you can just whip the badminton racquet around with so little effort
     
  6. Broto

    Broto New Member

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    Head heavy perception ----- Higher moment of Inertia
    Head Light perception ----- Lower Moment of Inertia
     

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