String Tension

Notes regarding the influence of STRINGING on badminton.

What strings are best? Thin strings or thick strings, gut or synthetic? How tight should the strings be? These issues clearly have a major impact on our sport yet there does not appear to be complete agreement on the answers. Posted below are various articles that at least define some of the issues. Search the web and you'll find very many opinions.

My own experience says that the answers here are highly complex. I've tried various strings at tensions up to 35+ lbs and find that for a specific racket each string has wide variety of behaviors between say 15 and 35 lbs. Some clearly reach elastic limits and get very mushy, some have ranges which are flat but higher or lower are quite nice. No string I've ever tried lasts more than a very short time at 35lbs (grommets are almost as bad- they die very quickly with very high tensions) but some have really nice feel. Bottom line is that every player/string/racket combination is different. Use what works well for you and don't be influenced by others.

• Looser gives more power:
  • Ashaway (Steve Crandall's Stringing Tips)
  • Paul Stewart
  • U.S.R.S.A. stringers digest excerpts as posted to dknet mailing list.
  • CHANGES IN STRING TENSION AFFECT RACKET PERFORMANCE Article from Badminton USA.
  • The Effect Of String Tension On Shuttlecock Velocity experimental work showing definite trend.  ~2010.
  • Tension Contentions article from Stringer's Assistant
• Tighter gives more power:
  • Two references Notes from Randy Yeung summarizing two references
• Other
  • Perceiving the affordance of string tension for power strokes in badminton: Expertise allows effective use of all string tensions. i.e. the better the player the less effect string tension has. [21SEP2014]

Page maintained by Stan Bischof (stan@worldbadminton.com). Last updated 22 September 2014 16:20