Why are we so adamant about grippy rubber needing tensor?

[ThePongCommenter]

“Generating power” is just technique. The idea that there’s some aspect of “power” that’s independent of technique is indeed a myth. Unless the argument is that a slow, dead rubber will literally make you build more muscle mass…that is possibly true for some people, but focused strength training would be much more effective and reduce risk of injury.

To the original question: you seem focused on the fact that “tensor” (for the sake of the conversation I’ll assume you include all modern tensioned rubbers) rubbers are faster, while ignoring or unaware of the fact that they also produce more spin, which means they actually have better control for looping compared to a Mark V. This is true for tacky rubbers as well; boosted H3 is much spinnier and better for looping than unboosted. To me it seems like what you’re missing is that the sponge plays a critical role in generating spin, and therefore control, on topspin shots. It’s not just about speed.

Finally, as a last aside, it seems like conventional wisdom around here that giving beginners “too fast” equipment will make them shorten their stroke too much and be afraid of swinging at the ball. My observations have been the exact opposite. Whenever I see beginner and especially intermediate players, their technical problems are almost always that they have wildly large and inefficient swings. Whenever they try to hit hard, they muscle the swing and end up producing less power than they could with a more compact and efficient stroke. This is generally true whether they have fast or slow equipment, so I actually don’t think equipment has anything to do with this. But trying to learn to loop or loop-kill with a dead rubber like Mark V probably wouldn’t help anyone with this problem.

Great post. Dead equipment "forcing someone into proper technique" is such a ridiculous myth that seems to get thrown around here constantly but people stick to what they want to stick to - while we're at it, maybe said players should also consider training in shoes with worn out soles, that will force them to have better footwork as it will really make sure they can establish balance and position by using their body instead of relying on the rubber soles to help.

 

[NextLevel]

It's still designed to grip a TT ball. That ball is still round, light and bouncy. What's so not optimal about it?

The sponge/topsheet combination is not optimal. So the sponge basically. Even unboosted H3 has a different character from Mark V - take it from someone who gave Mark V a whirl recently a year or two ago when I was looking for options for my forehand that could facilitate close to the table play and plays people who still use Mark V to play hitting styles.

 

[NextLevel]

@Tyce ,

Glayzer, Rozena, even H3-50 or H8-80 or TG 3-60, they are all relatively slower than their pro-level counterparts, but they are all suitable for beginners who want to evolve to the modern game. Mark V has a grippy topsheet sure, but the deformation and restoration to create spin is inferior to a modern sponge modern topsheet rubber, even one that seemingly has the same speed. While I have never used the power sponge or modern versions of Mark V or Sriver, those are basically where you have to start, not the plain original versions. Or Boosted Mark V if you think it takes booster well.

Can you play a decent game with plain Mark 5? Sure. It would be more of a specialist game though and not the modern looping one. In fact, I remember playing someone who used a dead sheet of T64 on the forehand and Mark 5 on the backhand and I kept blocking his backhand hits/topspins into the net. That was one where I had to pull out my experience adapting to dead rubbers to pull out the victory after losing the first game badly. Also Rich Dewitt I am confident still plays well with his Mark V and flat hits the ball with an ancient all wood blade.

But if you want to hit modern topspins, you need something with a more dynamic sponge. This was true even with the 40mm ball. I used to play around with Mark V as a blocker because I wasn't always a topspin player, and the players who strictly played topspin never understood how I could use Mark V. And now, I can understand exactly how they viewed my game. Mark Vjust doesn't have the elasticity that someone who wants to loop everything will feel comfortable using as they play faster and want to use faster rubbers. Even ancient tensors are better even with their limtiations (someone mentioned Acuda, and even the Genius/Hexer/Baracuda/Xplode/Fastarc G1/C1 gen are all more reasonable).

Long story short, if you are serious about developing your game, play with something that has a sponge that stretches in a way that encourages topspin. Mark V isn't it, though you can use it to play for sure, it just isn't going to feel the way a modern looping rubber should and moving from it will require adjustments to your technique because the sponge doesn't support advanced looping especially the counterspin.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

My two cents worth,

I tried for a while using Flextra ( Butterfly version of soft and grippy non-tension rubber ) on the FH. After six sessions of using, I develop soreness on my shoulder. After speaking with some of the club veteran, we deduced it is because I over-compensated my FH loop due to the non-trampoline nature of that rubber. As for BH, it was an amazing blocker's paradise.

 

[TheLimpUnicorn98]

I mean, I accept the awesome properties of today's rubbers with all their tensor technology... But end of the day the top players use H3 which is not a tensor rubber.

People on forums advocate using Hurricane to learn how to generate their own power, and that's got me thinking, wouldn't it make more sense for a non-tacky player to use classic grippy rubber to learn generating their own power?

Following that train, exactly how much better would a tensor then be for this player? Or would they still be able to reach up quite a bit using non-tensor, grippy rubbers like Mark V, Sriver etc?
I'm really wondering in what context the comments about classic rubber being useless actually holds true, and how far one might still be able to develop well using classics.

The H3 that top sponsored players use, specifically in the CNT and other national teams, is incomparable to the H3 that amateur and club players use. These rubbers are harder even at the same rating compared to the commercially available variants. They are then boosted heavily enough to the point that they can't be reboosted anymore without going mushy and are replaced every week at which they're almost completely destroyed. After their heavy boosting they're extremely bouncy (imagine Tenergy 05 levels of bounciness) and have a nice soft feeling without being too soft to the point where they'll bottom out for them. Provincial players and strong amateur players will attempt to boost more lightly and then reboost again after a week with a thin layer, this means that they're rubbers won't be as fast and as bouncy but they can squeeze 2 weeks out of them at the level that they play at. Given that the vast majority of non-elite table tennis players are not going to be replacing their rubbers every 2 weeks you can be certain that what you'll see at that level is by no means comparable to what the top players are playing with that you refer to in your post.

Rather than using classic rubbers, I think that a more mild Tensor effect rubber like Gewo Proton Neo 375 or Butterfly Rozena on the slightly faster side would be appropriate for beginner and intermediate players as they allow them to swing confidently whilst they learn the correct technique at which point they can eventually switch to Tenergy/Dignics or their ESN equivalents.

I agree that classic rubbers shouldn't be dismissed, however they should be speed glued. I think that classic rubbers like Butterfly Sriver are good for complete beginners because they're grippy and aren't bouncy but after this stage they should be speed glued lightly before each training session with the amount of glue used being increased as they get better and would benefit from bouncier rubbers. After they've perfected their technique and have learned to loop they can switch to the bouncier Tenergy/Dignics rubbers that won't need speed gluing as they begin to play in more serious tournaments with racket control but until this level they can use classic rubbers for quite a few years if they want and don't mind speed gluing. There's a lot of unnecessary stigma around it even though almost every amateur player that doesn't boost does it in China with table tennis stores offering to glue up with speed glue for them.

 

[Airoc]

Great post. Dead equipment "forcing someone into proper technique" is such a ridiculous myth that seems to get thrown around here constantly but people stick to what they want to stick to - while we're at it, maybe said players should also consider training in shoes with worn out soles, that will force them to have better footwork as it will really make sure they can establish balance and position by using their body instead of relying on the rubber soles to help.

This kinda made my day.

I read a lot about learning "the right technique" and I picture 70+ year olds teaching the "right technique" of 1975 with rubbers introduced to the market in the 60s.

Yes, Werner Schlager is Butterfly sponsored and new rubbers have to sell - but what he has to say about starting with more performant rubbers right away (and rather change the blade on the way) makes total sense to me. And it´s not that BTY wouldn´t want to sell Srivers, the margin on such old stuff must be immense ;-)

 

[FaguoLong]

KTL pro XP and 729 focus 3 snipe comes to mind as decent mark v alternatives that costs half of mark v

The KTL Pro XP is a beast. It’s the rubber I learned to play with as a kid (when I was 9), and the one I picked up again last year at 24, after 14 years without playing. It lets you generate a MASSIVE amount of spin — the sponge is quite soft and the topsheet is tacky. I can lift the ball and hold it on the rubber for 1 to 3 seconds!
Just for fun, I also tried boosting it last summer… and I basically turned it into a missile launcher with a gunshot sound!

 

[ThePongCommenter]

This kinda made my day.

I read a lot about learning "the right technique" and I picture 70+ year olds teaching the "right technique" of 1975 with rubbers introduced to the market in the 60s.

Yes, Werner Schlager is Butterfly sponsored and new rubbers have to sell - but what he has to say about starting with more performant rubbers right away (and rather change the blade on the way) makes total sense to me. And it´s not that BTY wouldn´t want to sell Srivers, the margin on such old stuff must be immense ;-)

The whole point of Rozena/Glayzer is to give a beginner friendly introduction to modern rubber feeling that is suited to work to the new ball. Other companies have similar product lines. And they do a good job of doing this.

Another huge myth I see here is that sponsored coaches/players have incentive to lie about equipment recommendations to help boost sales for the company. Very few of them have sponsorship agreements where they are getting a chunk of product sales, in fact, just talking about the equipment at all and producing a video is usually the sponsorship requirement itself but the insinuation that they are told to lie or push certain products is just not true.

 

[joshmak10]

If y’all want another analogy on this, think about when you give your child their first phone, give them an iphone 5 rather than an iPhone SE

 

[Tyce]

If y’all want another analogy on this, think about when you give your child their first phone, give them an iphone 5 rather than an iPhone SE

I'm too old for this one, in my brain they're basically the same phone

 

[ThePongCommenter]

I'm too old for this one, in my brain they're basically the same phone

I think what he is going for is that the SE is a simplified but still modernized version of the iPhone, whereas the 5 is made from outdated hardware and has a maximum storage capacity that doesn't suit modern usage.

 

[Spartan-727]

“Generating power” is just technique. The idea that there’s some aspect of “power” that’s independent of technique is indeed a myth. Unless the argument is that a slow, dead rubber will literally make you build more muscle mass…that is possibly true for some people, but focused strength training would be much more effective and reduce risk of injury.

To the original question: you seem focused on the fact that “tensor” (for the sake of the conversation I’ll assume you include all modern tensioned rubbers) rubbers are faster, while ignoring or unaware of the fact that they also produce more spin, which means they actually have better control for looping compared to a Mark V. This is true for tacky rubbers as well; boosted H3 is much spinnier and better for looping than unboosted. To me it seems like what you’re missing is that the sponge plays a critical role in generating spin, and therefore control, on topspin shots. It’s not just about speed.

Finally, as a last aside, it seems like conventional wisdom around here that giving beginners “too fast” equipment will make them shorten their stroke too much and be afraid of swinging at the ball. My observations have been the exact opposite. Whenever I see beginner and especially intermediate players, their technical problems are almost always that they have wildly large and inefficient swings. Whenever they try to hit hard, they muscle the swing and end up producing less power than they could with a more compact and efficient stroke. This is generally true whether they have fast or slow equipment, so I actually don’t think equipment has anything to do with this. But trying to learn to loop or loop-kill with a dead rubber like Mark V probably wouldn’t help anyone with this problem.

I've seen it happen to many beginners that don't get coaching often. Their equipment is too fast and to compensate they try to hit lighter or with a shorter stroke.
Not all beginners are younger kids or people have who money for constant lessons.
I won't say mark v is good but I'd rather see a beginner with that as tenergy.

 

[Tyce]

I think I have an answer for my original question.

I got to thinking, tensor is supposed to be a substitute for the banned speed glue, right?
So what did speed glue bring to the table: more spin, but also more control according to plenty of witnesses.
More control? How does that work? Off I went to research.
Apparently, speed glue, and in a sense tensor, brought more control by increasing the amount of spin that can be put on the ball. This puts the player more in control of the arc and placement.
Continuing on that thought, this setup allows for a better margin for error on higher power strokes, because a tensored sponge is less prone to bottoming out than a non tensored sponge of similar structure and hardness.
Result, you can swing harder, thus apply more spin/power, for the same amount of risk.

Conclusion:
Classic rubbers have only one benefit over tensor, and that is the relatively insensitive short game.
Learning to properly hit through the ball and generate good spin is less risky, thus easier, with a tensor rubber.
There's tensor rubbers on the market tailored to be slower and less spin sensitive, making for a good learning platform in all strokes.

So unless you are interested in pure defense with inverted rubber, or have decades of classic rubber experience and don't feel like changing, or you want to cover up a glaring weakness without resorting to anti or pips, tensor is the way to go over classic.

It would make more sense to switch to dense sponge tacky rubber if you want to keep the touch game insensitivity, but you need a good sense of power generation to make that work effectively.

I guess classic rubber didn't die when tensor was introduced, but it died when speed glue was introduced.