paddle mass and speed

Speed is relative the speed of the incoming ball should be taken into account also or it's for a popped up servereturn only ?

Suppose countering a somewhat higher fast loop with a smash. It,s not just adding energy then but also using the energy (being able to) the ball allready has. Elasticity and deformation of the ball comes in then also. For a fast smash you can use that elasticity as well as elasticity of the rubber and wood. But also with a too short impact the deformation stops to work elastic. Hitting harder doesn,t ad anything then because with the short dwell the forces become too strong for a tiny piece of celluloid.

The energy the opponent experiences coming back is a sum of his own energy plus something added and has a spin plus speed factor. With a blade that doesn,t accept the ball in for a longer moment the elasticity of the other parts (rubber, ball) can,t be made effective. The ballcontact can be too short, too much deformation the celluloid behaves less elastic aso. These somewhat old school fysics formula,s (including these laws of preservation of momentum and impuls seperate) typical neglect elastic behaviour and for tabletennis you can,t do that an have a realistic idea.

Also to be taken into account is that for energy for a tabletennisball a smash is never the most powerfull stroke and less the further from the table. Simply because the energyloss during the trajektory to the opponent is much bigger for speedfactor then for spin. Spin can carry further due to the construktion of the ball.

Different setups the spin / speed ratio is different for the most powerfull stroke. A def blade the optimal ratio (aimed to be experienced by the opponent) will be more towards spin and with enough speed and heigth to reach the net. There is an optimal ratio and an optimal curve (comes from it) also. There the cool starts to loose a lot because with tangential strokes the rubber needs more dwell to perform optimal as the topsheet rubber behaves more elastic it takes some time and the blade must allow that. The blade is a tool and the rubber also and the player has to make them work together to get that magical shot (the bang impact ?). 
It,s also what someone is used to play with. Changing from a 70 gr to a 90 gr blade is huge. To compare you would need to play with it for a few months and adapt technicque and timing to get the best out if it.
I prefer and play with blades near 90 gr. Longer time so my technicque and timing developed to get the best out of these blades. I also played a few years with a tsp balsa 6,5 mm core with glasfibre. Pretty fast blade. In the medium range of impact similar then clipper but for powerlooping further away not even close. For lower impact and/or  more flat strokes it was faster.

The "bandwith" was much more limited and the spin/speedratio for the optimal stroke more towards speed and less spin. It also made my strokes too short and my technicque got worse because a fullstroke was not rewarded. I could put energy in with hgiher contactspeed but not able to bring it out during the then shorter period of ballcontact.

Heavier powerfull rubber also has longer dwell and I couldn,t use these on that blade. It performed best with softer light quick rubber. But the setup as a whole then performed at lower level.

I felt the strength of the tsp was more in the quickness playing short range especially for bh. Being able to use a short stroke and placementdeception the supprise factor was bigger then with a clipper. But two stepsback being ableto use a somewhat longer stroke the clipper becomes faster for me. Offcourse if the weight is only deadweight not taking part of the action or with a too low frecquency the weight is only added weight. Like most of the rubber is dead weight not elastic part of the energytransfer except for the small area where the ball is hit. For a blade that funktions mostly by surface spring and little flex this works more or less the same. Materials near the neckzone are highly effective/funktional for every stroke.

And there lies a significant weakness for tabletennisblades also. The optimal build a blade would have to be made thinner towards the tip, similar to a fishing road. Then the materials could be used more optimal and certainly also the carbon. Then I can imagine making a lighter blade more powerfull. But unfortunately this is not allowed for ittf rules.
But with the thick balsa blades because the energy/elasticity comes from surface spring mostly a relatively high part of the materials is not funktional and the neckzone is not funktional...too thick for powerlooping and a powerloop is the most powerfull stroke for the opponent to deal with.

On short range the lightweight blade could have advantage though. Then the lack of time for a more full swing (and using hiprotations, knees aso for accelleration) plays a bigger role and then the arguments for a lighter blade will weigh in more. But for playing more close to table I would still prefer a normal weight blade and then search for somewhat lighter rubber.





Edited by tompy - 01/19/2011 at 12:05pm

Well if the arm speed and all other things are equal there is some increase in speed with weight but I also am I'm sure it's so small on the same blade with the same composition it's irrelevant and I'm also sure that you can more than compensate with extra speed from a lighter blade :) (depending a bit on the build and speed of the player). In the end we are arguing about 1% in speed either way. Brand of balls or humidity/temp in the air or what you had for dinner probably count for more :)