WHY are hollow blade head heavy weight forward blades the norm in our modern days?

[Der_Echte]

Carl made me think about this and I decided to make a separate thread to discuss this.

3 questions.

- Why are there SO MANY hollow handle and head heavy weight forward blades being made these days? It seems almost all of them are like this.

- Why do TT players prefer (or at least continue to purchase) these hollow handle blades? (If they hate them, then there would be no market)

- Why do players want a LIGHTER blade (the hollow handle saves anywhere from 5-15 grams)

My response was simply that the blade industry saw an opportunity to create a new market and skillfully planned/executed their way to a ton of new sales. I am not fundamentally against companies, heck, we need them to be profitable in modern world, they directly employ a lot of people and secondary effects help economy. super. I am also not against a player who prefers light or lighter. I just prefer heavier and more solid low balance. I do not like weight forward, but many seem to like that. I am not against someone's personal choice in this, I just prefer different.

What I want to hear is everyones' opinions on WHY these three questions or so.

This could get interesting...

 

[mahomedy13]

1- companies saw an opening and exploited it.
2- people prefer it for a looping game.
3-it gives them a quicker recovery at close to table encounters.

I personally dont like them.

 

[KM1976]

As per my understanding, from pure physics point of view, if a player whips his forearm in a semi-circular motion to hit a topspin stroke then he uses his elbow as pivot. In this case, the head of the blade is at farthest point of the circle and this needs to travel the greatest distance. If the blade is head heavy then it generates more angular momentum and thus gives more oomph/zip on the stroke resulting in a powerful topspin. So in a nutshell, head heavy blades a better suited for attackers. Also, removing a chunk of wood from the handle reduces the overall weight, thus making the blade lighter and favoring quicker recovery.

 

[sebas-aguirre]

I think most players prefer it this way (I am one of them).
if there was no hollow handle blades would be 10g heavier and too much handle heavy.

 

[mr. tom]

1 Most customers want relatively light blades. One way to make them like that are hollow handles, which makes them head heavy.

2 Most Players don't even realize their blades have hollow handles. Some want them because it makes their blade lighter. Also, when attacking with topspin, the weight fartest away from the player, increases power the most.

3 Players want lighter blades to avoid injury and allow for faster arm speed and faster recovery. Lighter blades also keep more (weight) room for heavier rubbers.

I don't like head heavy blades. I might be wrong, but to me it feels like recovery is slower with head heavy blades. I do prefer non head heavy light blades; they seem to be hard to find when you also want an attacking blade.

 

[Rajah*]

That is why we use "therapy bands" on physical training to facilitate quick recovery even on powerful strokes

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[TTFrenzy]

With hollow handles the center of gravity moves higher onto the playing surface of the paddle. This means more torque during a hit which results in more spin and speed. Its a matter of preference , if you dont feel you control 100% the ball in every stroke with a hollow handle blade then go for a normal one

 

[Kevinkorb]

Why there are so many hollow handle and head heavy blades currently has to do with the reason for these blades being developed in the first place. What the hollow handle allows is, as you mentioned, for the creation of a lighter blade. But why is this better? This part is easier to understand. Simply put, a lighter blade allows for a quicker stroke and recovery. You can swing a lighter object faster than a heavy object.

To understand the second aspect of the head-heavy blade's dominance, you must understand the mechanics of a proper table tennis stroke. In your swing, the arm is meant to act like a whip, and the fastest point of movement should occur at the moment of contact with the ball. This is partially accomplished through the flick of your wrist on your swing. Due to top-heavy nature of these blades, the power of the wrist flick is magnified. Think of it like bike gears. On a lower setting you have to pedal a lot just to move a little whereas when in a high gear a little movement generates a lot of power. Because of the top heavy blade, the smaller movement at the wrist correlates to a much greater and more powerful contact with the ball.

Another way to think about it. Go get a rope and swing it around. Then, go get something heavy, tie it to the end of the rope and swing it around again. The rope with extra weight on the end will swing a much faster. Think of the rope as the arm, and the object at the end as the top-heavy blade. The top-heavy nature allows for a faster swing with more power imparted at the moment of contact to the ball.

Now, putting the two together. You want your blade to be as light as possible because this allows for the quickest stroke. Therefore, the manufacturers attempt to create the most ideal weight distribution to maximize power upon the point of contact. This leads to the creation of the top-heavy blade.

(Bonus point: the handle is also the portion of the blade that most easily lends itself to becoming lighter. You wouldn't want them to make your blade thin and flimsy just to shave off a few grams)

 

[Rajah*]

Again its a matter of prefrence
We cannot set a standard bar, every player is unique.

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[UpSideDownCarl]

The first thing I am going to do is quote myself:

I am going to say something about weight in the handle.

First I am going to give a test. Standing upright fold forward as close to half way down so that your legs are still vertical and your torso is as close to parallel to the ground as you can get. Now reach your arms back towards your butt so the arms are parallel to your torso, next reach your arms out to the sides (perpendicular to your body) so your arms form a T shape and your arms are still parallel to the ground, one more, now reach your arms away from butt with your arms still parallel to the ground. Notice which one makes your arms feel heaviest. But your arms weigh the same regardless of which position.

That photo is the last version I was describing. Why do your arms feel so much heavier when you do this than when you reach out or back instead????

Because you have to work to hold the weight that is farther away from your center of gravity, you need more force to hold the weight because it is farther from the center of gravity, whereas, you do not need a 10th as much force to hold the weight when the weight is distributed around the center of gravity (arms reaching back) or a 3rd the force when your arms are significantly closer to your center of gravity (arms reaching out instead of forward).

So, if you have two blade that are both 85 grams and one is handle heavy and one is very light in the handle (so, head heavy) the one that is head heavy will feel significantly heavier. The head heavy blade will actually affect your bat speed and reset more than the handle heavy heavy blade of the same weight. One more thing: if you take an 85 gram blade and add 15 grams of weight to the handle, it actually won't feel any heavier or a barely noticeable amount heavier in terms of stroke, bat speed and reset, because the weight has been added to the part of the racket that is in your hand. The head has remained the same weight. So from the standpoint of swinging the bat, it will feel almost the same, it might feel like you can get more whipping action from the blade in your stroke. In fact, the 15 grams, the part that is in your hand, may make the bat feel a little lighter because, now, the head is lighter in relationship to the handle.

So, I have 2 896 blades that have not been messed with. I tried 3 of Der_Ecthe's modified 896 blades. They all had weight added to the handle. They all felt like a noticeably better quality blade than either of my 896s. None of them felt heavier than my 896s but I could feel much more whipping action, inertia behind the stroke and the blades felt more solid. When I was looping, they all felt LIGHTER than my 896 blades, ALL OF the modified blades felt lighter than the unmodified ones.

I hope the info I put in helps people understand why adding to the handle weight might not affect the reset. The weight in the blade face that you are moving is still the same weight. The weight in the handle basically makes the blade feel and respond more solidly. But it does not make it feel heavier because the blade face is the same weight.

So, why do blade companies like making hollow handled, head heavy blades? Why do they tell us that they are better for offensive output? I don't really know. But I do know that they can tell you the blade is 85 grams--because the handle is hollow--even though they have not changed the weight of the blade face. So you think you have an 85 gram blade and then you play with it and think, "why does this feel so heavy if it is only 85 grams. And then you add a little weight to the handle and it is heavier but it does not really feel heavier. Just more solid and like the balance is better.

So, again, a blade that is 85 grams with the weight balanced in the handle will feel significantly lighter when taking a loop stroke than an 85 gram blade that is head heavy and handle hollow. It is just physics.

That was from a different thread that caused Der_Echte to think of and create this thread.

Second I am going to say, there is one thing that a hollow handle does do: it gives a blade more vibration. Some people like that and some people don't.

But I defy the people who are saying that a hollow handle gives a faster reset and more whipping action in a blade to take two blades of the same weight--one blade with a hollow handle and the balance in the head, and one with the handle solid and the balance towards the handle--and stroke and see which one feels heavier and which one you can get faster stroke acceleration from.

I am betting that if you are honest, the head heavy hollow handled blade will feel heavier and be harder to accelerate.

Next test, take a blade that is hollow handled and inexpensive or already one you don't care about, and open the handle and add 10-15 grams of weight to the handle and see what it feels like after. I am willing to bet your bat speed will be as fast or faster, and the blade will feel more solid and the blade will actually make the ball go faster: the blade will go up in speed-class; like if it was an Off- blade it might go up to an Off speed blade.

The other reason for blade companies to make hollow handles, in my opinion, has already been hit upon: a company can take a blade that would be 100 grams with a solid handle, take 15 grams off in the handle, and sell a 100 gram blade as an 85 gram blade.

Now I actually don't care very much about head heavy or handle heavy. My arm is strong enough to hold a baseball bat or a tennis racket so an extra 15 grams is not going to make much difference to me.

BUT I THINK HEAD HEAVY IS MOSTLY MARKETING AND MOSTLY ABOUT TAKING A BLADE THAT WOULD BE 100 GRAMS AND BEING ABLE TO SAY, "THIS BLADE ONLY WEIGHS 85 GRAMS!"

I have a Timo Boll ZLF. I have Tenergy on that blade. I have a friend who has the same setup. He recently bought a new one with a straight handle instead of a flare. He is a pro. It is very hard to find that blade with a straight handle. The straight handle weighs more than the flare does, 2 to 4 grams more. The blades weigh the same though. I could not believe how much more whipping action I was able to get with just 2-4 grams more weight in the handle. However, the blade felt too light to me. It would have felt better if the blade was 2-4 grams heavier because the blade face was a hair too light for the handle weight.

I do like blades that are in the 85-90 gram weight range. I don't really care if the handle is hollow or solid. But, the ones with solid handles, like Butterfly blades, definitely have an advantage in their weight class.

Regardless, whatever I am using, I will get used to and be fine with.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I think I am going to jump on two images here. The first and the bigger one, the rope.

If you take a rope--say a 3 foot rope, approximately the length of an arm--and you had an 30 gram weight on the end of it and you had another rope, same length with a 90 gram weight and you spun both around, you would be able to get a higher top speed with the 90 gram weight at the end of the rope; HOWEVER, the acceleration from speed zero to top speed would be considerably slower with the 90 gram weight and the deceleration back to zero would also be considerably slower. And, if you took a 4 foot rope with a 90 gram weight on it, it would accelerate and decelerate more slowly than the 3 foot rope with the 90 gram weight. But the top speed would also be higher.

And the most important aspects of a table tennis stroke are the acceleration and the reset (which consists of a deceleration, acceleration in other direction and another deceleration).

So, based on this image, top speed would be higher with the head heavy blade if you could take a larger swing that went far enough to reach top speed. But the stroke is too small for that.

By the way, this is similar to the reason why on skateboards and rollerblades, when skating a vert ramp, they use LITTLE WHEELS (55-60mm usually) whereas, in speed skating on rollerblades they use giant wheels, 110mm may even be small these days. The bigger wheel accelerates more slowly but tops out at a higher speed. In speed skating you don't really accelerate and decelerate too much. You just try and go faster unless you are forced to slow down a small amount. Whereas, on a skateboard ramp, where you generate the momentum for the height is on the transition, the curved part of the ramp, where the amount of acceleration is much more important than the top speed if you have the timing. The acceleration gives you the height not the top speed because on a regular vert ramp you don't actually get to top speed.

And on a table tennis stroke, because the ball is so light acceleration for that fraction of a second while the ball is on the rubber is the most important part. Acceleration gives both the ball speed and the spin.

I could talk about the shoulder joint, the elbow joint and the wrist but I will keep things simple. You may get more inertia and more power from the shoulder, the hips, the legs, but you get more acceleration from the elbow which is why forearm snap is so important in a loop. The wrist gets even more acceleration than the forearm which is why the wrist adds that last bit of action which is like the icing on the cake. Adding the wrist is important and that extra acceleration gives the ball more spin which makes it a higher level shot and makes the feel heavier.

The joint with the smaller lever arm--wrist then forearm then shoulder--will accelerate faster and top out at a lower top speed. You could invert this statement too. The longer lever arm accelerates slower and tops out at a higher speed.

But none of this changes the fact that the farther the weight is from the axis of the lever arm--in this case that is the joint whose action moves the racket--the harder it is to accelerate or decelerate the racket.

So if you take a Stiga Offensive Classic with a WRB handle that weighs 85 grams and swing it and feel your bat speed, and you take a Butterfly TB ZLF racket that weighs 85 grams and has a solid handle and the weight balance towards the handle instead of the head I AM WILLING TO BET you will get more whipping action, faster reset and acceptation from the handle heavy blade.

I AM ALSO WILLING TO BET that if you take that Stiga OC and an IDENTICAL ONE, and fill the hollow WRB of the 2nd Stiga OC with 10-15 grams of wood and glue, (or how Der_Echte has done, with nails and glue, hahaha), that the difference in bat speed will be almost unnoticeable and it may even feel like the one with the filled handle gets more whipping action.

Try the tests and see.

So the short way of saying all this is that, the flaw in the image of a rope with a weight at the end of it is:

1) your arm is not a rope.
2) the rope image only looks at top speed and not acceleration and deceleration.

Now the bicycle gear image is not a bad one. And on a bicycle you are looking for a gear that matches both your leg strength and the terrain. For each person that is going to be different.

With rackets you make your choices: do you want more whipping action and acceptation? or do you want more inertia in the head going into the ball.

Once that is the question there is no real correct answer because it is a matter of strength, body size and PERSONAL CHOICE.

So, in the end, if we are used to it, it will feel natural. I remember I used to use a Clipper with H3 and Tenergy. That was a 95 gram blade with the heaviest rubbers out there and the H3 sponge was soaked in oil so it weighed a ton. But that was what I was used to so if I used an 85 gram handle balanced blade at the time I would have felt it was too light and whippy. Now I would feel that the Clipper with the H3 was too heavy without enough whip. But if I used that again for about a month I would feel it was right and more whippy was not. And then the real question is how much inertia and how much whip is optimal for each person.

But a blade that is head heavy is really a blade that is heavier with the handle hollowed and the same blade with the weight still in the handle will give the same basic amount of whip and have more inertia and be more solid, but it will have less vibration.

So people who like head heavy blades actually would probably just like heavier blades (more inertia) and the hollow handle is just marketing from the companies. It makes it so they can say a blade that really would be 95-100 grams is only 85 grams. It also makes it so they can say it has more offensive output but that is really just that it is a 95 gram blade with the handle hollowed out. And the people who like those blades would probably also like the same blade with a solid handle and they might not even notice a difference in weight. The same blade with a solid handle would probably feel faster, more solid and have more whipping action.

But the real question is: What is right for you?


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[Bishop Rasta 27]

sir der_echte has posted a great thread for discussion and learning...thank you for the knowledge that you all have imparted...

in my opinion, they manufacture blades with a balanced weight from the face to the handle, they compensate the weight of the wide or large face of the blade by making the handle either solid or hollow....now if you put rubbers on it, it will become a head heavy setup...

as per experience, i prefer a set up that has a balanced weight from the face (with rubbers) to the handle to have a, as sir carl puts, "more whipping action",therefore, there is a need to modify, if not, a weight to the handle to achieve the balance that you prefer...

to simply put, for me, its a matter of preference, as everybody have said, every player is unique...

no matter what, let's enjoy our passion!!!good days everyone!!!

 

[Der_Echte]

Wow, that LONG post from Carl with a mobile! He REALLY had something to say hehe

 

[Der_Echte]

I do like blades that are in the 85-90 gram weight range.

I start liking them at 90, but there are a few exceptions that I can cope with using thick grip tape.

What do you think of the extra THIRTY FIVE grams I added to your fav Allround Evolution to make a 117 gram WHOPPER blade before grip tape?

I think I added 10 grams too much, but it still plays great and I am still fast with it.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I start liking them at 90, but there are a few exceptions that I can cope with using thick grip tape.

What do you think of the extra THIRTY FIVE grams I added to your fav Allround Evolution to make a 117 gram WHOPPER blade before grip tape?

I think I added 10 grams too much, but it still plays great and I am still fast with it.

I would have to hit with it to see, but I think it is probably pretty decent and solid. The name All-round on it did not fit before you made the modification because that blade is an Off- speed blade. But, now yours has got to be an Off blade. You have made yourself and Offensive Evolution.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Wow, that LONG post from Carl with a mobile! He REALLY had something to say hehe

Fast thumbs. hahaha.

 

[dannyreventon]

Carl,

Does the recent Clipper Wood/Classic blades have hollow handle? Even though they're marketed as non-wrb? How do I know if my Clipper Wood has a hollow handle? Thanks

 

[paco]

Carl,

Does the recent Clipper Wood/Classic blades have hollow handle? Even though they're marketed as non-wrb? How do I know if my Clipper Wood has a hollow handle? Thanks

Clipper has a hollow handle for sure. I have seen in my own clipper.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Carl,

Does the recent Clipper Wood/Classic blades have hollow handle? Even though they're marketed as non-wrb? How do I know if my Clipper Wood has a hollow handle? Thanks

Clipper has a hollow handle for sure. I have seen in my own clipper.

That is the correct answer. The ones that look like the handle is solid, there is a hollow space in the handle. It is not that big a deal, but it is there. The Clipper is still an amazing blade. I know more pros in this area who use that blade than any other. Here is a photo of a different Stiga blade with a hollow handle that looks like it is solid. This is from a different thread by Der_Echte:

That is not a Clipper but the Clipper's handle will be just like that. Also you can see the design and look of this blade are the same as the Clipper. It is a 5 ply, Off-, version of a Clipper.

 

[Der_Echte]

I never took one apart, so I wouldn't know, and I don't wanna buy a Clipper to do it, so I hope Carl is Korrekt haha.

I got a huge lunch bet riding on this. (That no one has accepted)