By the way, I know a lot of people recommend thinner rubbers fairly regularly. I know lots of people say things like, "for more control, use 2.0 or 1.9...." etc.
I have never liked rubber that was less than max. There was one time when someone got me a gift and got a 1.9 rubber. I totally hated it. I swapped it for max fairly quickly.
Now, when I really didn't know much about equipment, I thought it was just a quirk for me. But I am, at this point comfortable saying that many people who get themselves thinner rubbers are doing themselves a disservice. Not all. But many.
When I heard Werner Schlager say that a developing player should always and only use Max thickness rubber and that thinner rubber would cause the player to change their stroke and it would be something they would have to unlearn later, I realized there was something that a lot of people are missing.
I will say it differently. In the context of what Werner Schlager said his statement is complete. But most of you hearing the statement are not getting the context within which Schlager said that. So I will provide some of the context. He was talking about someone who wants to learn the technique for getting heavy, heavy topspin on their loops. And I am not sure they had rubbers like MXP or MXS back when he said that.
So, here is what I would say:
If you want to develop a modern looping game, where the main factor in developing technique is developing the ability to generate massive topspin, you don't really want thinner than Max or 2.0. Most of the time Max is preferable. But it depends on a few factors like the hardness of the sponge and the weight of the rubber.
If your game is really not based on learning to increase your level of topspin on loops, or your game involves chopping or flat hitting, then thinner sponge will probably make sense.
But if what you want is to develop the ability to get the ball to sink into the sponge, have the topsheet wrap and grab the ball, and have the sponge catapult the ball out with a lot of spin from the distortion of the sponge and topsheet and their subsequent rebound--if you want to learn how to do that well on your topspin shots--then you do not really want a thinner rubber. Even if you are not good enough to do what I just said at this point.
Everyone has a right to their own opinions. I am okay that people like Yogi are certainly going to disagree with what I have just said. But it is worth thinking about what Werner Schlager said and why he may have said it. And I think he knows more about this stuff than most of us.
Yeah, I do think he was talking to youth who were training on a national team. Perhaps we are not at that level.
But there are enough of us where the fundamentals of what Schlager was talking about still apply.
For some people those thinner rubbers get the player used to and relying on flatter strokes with more drive and less spin. They still work. They still have decent spin. But not the same as they would have if you really learned to use mechanical spin.
Also, most people think that thinner sponge is slower. That is actually not true. Thicker sponge allows you to spin more because there is more sponge for the ball to sink into. But the sponge actually cushions/dampens the impact. The thicker sponge allows you to swing faster while swinging tangentially because there is more depth of sponge before the ball impacts the wood.
But on flatter strokes, the thinner sponge is faster. There have been many tests that show this. On a flatter stroke a thinner sponge is faster. Not slower. So the thinner sponge allows you to flat hit better. I would say that is part of why someone wanting to develop more spin would not want it.
