The Rubberband Vibration Dampener

One more thing about vibration dampeners . . .

In my post Using a Vibration Dampener on Your Tennis Racquet, I talked about why you might or might not want to use a vibration dampener on your racquet. In summary, with one you reduce string vibration and possibly noise. But you also reduce the amount of "feel" you get when you hit the ball.

Well, I can't let this subject go without talking about the famous (or infamous) rubberband vibration dampener and one its most well-known proponents - Andre Agassi. Apparently, Andre was not only a fan of vibration dampeners but he preferred to rig his racquet with the rubberband version (see photo).

And, now, you can do this too! By clicking on this link - How to Install Rubberband Damper - you will be taken to a post that clearly explains, with photos, how to tie a rubberband onto your strings to create a vibration dampener. It evens shows you the size of rubberband preferred by Andre - Rubberband #64 (in case you wanted to know the exact size to use).

I myself gave this a try (all part of the R&D we do here at Tennis Fixation) and I can report that a rubberband really does work as a vibration dampener! (As if Andre Agassi might be wrong about this.) But, as I've previously concluded, I am not a vibration dampener person so I didn't keep this on my strings for long.

But maybe it will work for you! If you give the rubberband dampener a try, let me know what you think.




© Kim Selzman 2010 All Rights Reserved