That's exactly what my thinking is also. Adding lead tape to the head of the racket will of course make the balance change significantly. However, adding lead tape to the handle where you grip it wouldn't change it significantly (when you swing the actual racket in practise).
OK here's another example: Perhaps you guys already know they way LD and TH grip their racket, they took off the original grip and add towel grip only as high as bottom half of the handle (half of the handle is uncovered and the wood can be seen). Why? To make the racket even head heavier. If Gollum theory valid, then reducing the weight of the grip dont matter, but in fact thats what top players did. I really not sure about that argument of BP remains the same, for me a towel gripped racket straight away fell head light incomparison to synthetic gripped, simply because cotton is heavier than synthetic material. The racket will also feel different, your swinging and timing also different, basically everything changes. And I think thats exactly why we rarely see any top players changeing their grip from synthetic to towel or vise versa.
Can anyone confirm that LD and TH only grip their racket up half way the handle for the reason to make the racket more head heavy? I would have thought adding lead tape to the head of the racket would have been much more effective at making the racket more head heavy.
Do you have any alternative explaination why they do they way they do?? Plus how much lead tape that LD can add to the head?? He already taped the whole upper head, there is no more room to add without sacrificing movement.
The link already does - it forces Lin Dan to grip the handle nearer the bottom. Nothing to do with adding/removing weight and changing balance points.
Sorry about my old tired eyes, but could not find any explainatio beside the author guessing I quote "I guess Lin Dan’s feel more comfort doing so by putting the grip tape half way only"
http://www.badmintoncentral.com/for...ACS-fan-club?p=1679653&viewfull=1#post1679653 "According to reports, this forces Lin Dan into using the full length of the grip since he used to always hold his racket about halfway up the grip, no matter which shot he played."
He must be joking, these players at their level still need to be reminded where and how to hold a racket properly. Oh in that case TH also suffering from a short term memory lost?? Sorry I dont buy that.
Well, no point guessing I suppose. If someone knows the exact reason why, then please tell us. Otherwise, let's get back on topic.
OK I rather end this discussion by saying that IMO no matter how small or big, adding grip to a racket handle changes BP and hence the overall feel of the racket. For a simple reason that we dont normaly grip the handle the same size of our hand (where the balance of the weight addition is always in the middle like Gollum picture), in my case i grip my racket all the way a few inches above the cone, so as a result Gollum theory (although theoritically valid) is less valid in my case. In my case the 100kg square in the Gollum picture will always drop to either left or right. Even if you grip your handle to the cone while holding the racket way at the bottom, that would already change the BP wouldn't it? The second simple reason is that most of us dont position our hand grip in the same place all the time, for example at the bottom then smashing but in the middle when driving/netting, and therefore the significant addition weight at the handle can be felt throughout
Found the answer guys: http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php/29859-Lin-Dan-s-quot-broken-quot-racket-grip...?p=336024&viewfull=1#post336024 According to DinkAlot, Lin Dan said it in a Chinese newspaper.
There are 10 pages of guessing there. And I share with many of the posts, pointing out that the whole grip stripping out has something to do with making the racket head heavier.
I think I trust DinkAlot more than other people on this forum. Why would he lie about something like that?
