Tennis Racket Shock Absorbers

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Lincoln Ward. I am the director at the Austin Tennis Center here in Austin, Texas as well as a USPTA Certified Teaching Pro. Today we are going to talk about what are shock absorbers on your tennis racket. Shock absorbers are rubber or some sort of a foam material that helps deaden the vibration in your strings as the strong makes contact with the tennis ball. Every time the tennis ball hits your strings it sends vibrations throughout the strings up into the frame and that frame then sends it up to your arm. There are different ways to dampen that vibration, one being a vibration dampener. This right here is one example of a vibration dampener. It is just a rubber material that runs across two or more of your strings and helps to absorb some of the impact and energy from the vibration on your contact. There are a wide variety of different vibe absorbs out there. There are types that fit in between two strings. There are types that run across several strings and you can use one or several vibe absorbs for your racket just depending on how deadened you want it to feel. Realize, however, the more vibe absorbs you use the less feel you are going to have on the ball. It is going to feel a little more dead. Now if you are in a pinch and you need a vibe absorb or a vibration dampener on your racket and you don't have one, you can always use a rubber band. The materials are generally the same and you would want to wrap it around two strings, just keep zig zagging it in and out of your strings until it stays there nice and tight and keep it going until you have it nice and tight like this. I still have some slack here but if you keep on wrapping it nice and tight it is going to be your own home made vibe absorb. That is a vibe absorb in tennis."