Tennis Tape
should i remove lead tape from my tennis racket if i have a wrist injury?
i am 16 years old and an advanced amateur tennis player. i play with a prince hornet hybrid which weighs 285 g. unstrung. last year i played at an academy and they put on 4 strips of 6 cm long lead tape – i’ve calculated that that’s about 4 g. of extra weight, although i could be wrong.
since adding the extra weight i’ve constantly been having wrist problems – last year i was diagnosed with inflammation of the wrist joint. this year it has been particularly bad. i have trouble playing – especially low ball thats i need to scoop up from under. i play – the pain comes, i stop – it goes away after 1.5 weeks but then it comes back.
should i remove the tape and adjust my game to the lighter racket? what else can i do?
definitely remove the lead tape. though it may not be the cause of your problems (it could be the mechanics of your stroke ) it might be making these problems worse.
the truth is you might not be doing anything wrong mechanically either, it could just be that you have some natural instability (weakness) in the wrist, which can be improved with strength conditioning.
here’s links to a couple of wrist strengtheners for tennis players. but REST your wrist and make sure it is fully healed before you being exercising it. and when you do start, start slowly.
http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/descpagePYTHON-DFPGB.html
http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/descpagePYTHON-DFPBGB.html
good luck.
