hey guys so i made a video called the ultimate string guide and this was a fun video for me
because i went through my own string history i explained what kind of strings exist on the market
and also gave some recommendations what kind of strings you should be using at the recreational
level and this is something i've been doing for the last 30 years players always come to me
ask me questions about strings and i love helping my players out however in this video
i received some interesting comments and let me read you some way too much misinformation
in this video sad really okay i i accept the comment but i don't think it's misinformation
this is uh information that i've been collecting for the last 30 years i have a lot of experience
when it comes to strings and giving advice to the recreational level now this one says this is
100 bro science and very inaccurate i'm not sure what bro science is but doesn't sound very good
now this one is a little bit off topic it says mansplaining and man spreading okay i i'm sorry i
have a certain way that i sit this is by no means man spreading i'm gonna try to sit a little bit
more like you know polite and not spread out so much even though i'm completely by myself i don't
see anybody else next to me um but i accept the comment i will work on my sitting style in the
future now this is funny somebody sent this to me i never realized this existed it's the tennis
warehouse forum i'm sure some of you guys are familiar with this and somebody sent me this link
and there's been a huge thread on several of my videos that i never realized and this particular
one says co-poly and stiff rackets are the cure for tennis elbow according to intuitive tennis
and this is exactly why i made the response video i never said this see the problem with
strings is that if you open up tennis warehouse you go to strings there are literally hundreds
if not thousands of different types of strings and most of those are labeled copoly strings now
some of this blame goes to the manufacturers because the manufacturers do a really terrible job
explaining what type of strings they're selling sometimes the strings are not labeled at all i've
seen them often mislabeled and generally there's a lack of information when it comes to the materials
that are used in the particular polyester string so the problem is we can't just say poly strings
and make this a general term and apply it across all polyester strings there are vast differences
as i explained in my original video so what i want to do today instead of talking about
what kind of materials are in the strings because this is going to be too complicated anyway since
the manufacturers are not labeling the strings correctly i wasn't really aware this is the case
someone told me about this and they're absolutely correct the strings are labeled horribly so my
original video dealt more with the type of strings materials that are inside the string so today i'm
simply going to give you the recommendations what type of strings i think are best for you and mind
you i'm not sponsored by any string i don't have a string sponsorship so i'm giving these companies
a free plug and one more thing that's really important when it comes to pain in your arm please
consult your doctor my evidence is just anecdotal is just my experience with my students on the
court and this is just my opinion if you have pain the first thing you got to do is go see the doctor
okay guys so rather than giving you the materials of the strings i'm gonna now give you the brand
name and the type of string it is and tell you if it's either good or bad we'll keep it super simple
but one more thing that's really important for you guys to understand when it comes to pain in the
arm so what happens to a lot of players is they play with a particular string and they get used
to that particular string and also their arm gets used to it and now they make a change it could be
any string could be the most arm friendly string ever and there is a danger of the arm hurting this
happens to a lot of players so my advice to you is if you are playing with a string and you like
the way it plays it doesn't cause you any pain whatever string that may be whether it's natural
gut kevlar whether it's a synthetic gut whether it's copolymer or copolyester monofilament stick
with it don't make any changes you are endangering your arm by making a change there's nothing wrong
with playing with the same materials remember most of the players on tour play with the same string
their whole career i play with the same string for 15 years just keep doing what you're doing
and don't make any changes all right here we go luxilon original big banger this is the
original string that came out that guga kuerten used when he won the french open and this is a
co polymer so this string has other materials inside and this string is not stiff like some
people tend to believe if you watch my previous video its very bendable very soft string to the
touch but when you play with it it plays extremely dead it has absolutely no power this is great for
the pros because they can hit the ball as hard as they want without sacrificing control for
the recreational level however anything below 5.0 i do not recommend that you play with this
string because you're going to have to exert more energy to hit the ball and there's a danger that
your arm is going to start hurting because of it okay this one is maybe the most popular string
on tour it's the luxilon big banger alu power and this is what most of the professional players
play with and this is great for the high level but for the recreational level this makes absolutely
no sense it has the same characteristics as the original luxilon string so i do not recommend
that you play with the string another string that's very popular is the solinco hyper g now
in my opinion this string is more geared towards the professional circuit or the high level junior
circuit this is not something that's good for the recreational player now if you look at the
description of the string it does say co-polyester monofilament but my experience this string plays
extremely dead but i know it's very popular at the rec level so my recommendation is unless you're a
5-0 do not play with this string because again it's going to be super dead you're not going to
get a lot of power you're going to have to hit the ball very hard and there's a chance
that your arm is going to hurt because of that guys look at this thing it's a wheel 400 meter
this is how much i love polystar and again i'm not sponsored by any of these strings
so polystar is my favorite string i used to play with it for 15 years however we talked about how
the manufacturers can be sneaky sometimes they change the materials without telling us and all
of a sudden it feels different and we have to be very careful with that because even polystar
the new version of the string doesn't quite play like the old one like i said in my original video
that 100 polyester string doesn't exist anymore on the market i cannot find it it's that super
hard string that when you string it on your racket and you go like this it makes that pinging sound
it's like ping ping ping ping and that in my experience is the string that's the easiest on
the arm because the ball just catapults off the racket those strings also have a tendency to be
very elastic i know this sounds kind of crazy so they're very hard to the touch they're very stiff
but they have a lot of elasticity as well and this is what polystar was famous for they're
very elastic 100% monofilament polyester strings so when you hit the ball you have to exert very
little energy and you get a crazy amount of power and therefore this is a lot easier on the arm
i told you i've been giving string recommendations for the past 30 years
many players come to me with tennis elbow issues and i recommend this string for example
and what happens with those players is they get a relief in pain because of the reasons
i mentioned previously they have to exert less energy and their pain tends to go away
because of that another string that i do recommend for the rec level is the head hawk string and this
is also a co polyester monofilament if you get it in 17 or 18 gauge is a super
powerful string again very little energy that you have to exert when you hit the ball and this is
another a great string for the rec level and of course i already talked about this string in my
previous video this is the string i'm playing with right now it's the kirschbaum super smash
but again kirschbaum got a little sneaky and they change this string so it's not like the original
kirschbaum super smash even though it does say i think original on here they did change it so
it's not that super pingy string that they used to have it has been modernized deadened a little bit
in other words but it's still a fantastic choice for the recreational level now one thing that
i didn't talk about much in the previous video i did mention it at the very end is string tension
and there's an epidemic in this country and actually internationally where rackets get strung
too tight i don't know why this is exactly i have my own suspicions i think stringers are scared
that players of the recreational level are going to bring the racket back because the strings move
around too much so when the strings are strung loosely the strings have a tendency to move more
rec players don't like that so they like it nice and tight so the strings stay in place
and this is why even though you might be sending a racquet to be strung at 45 pounds it comes back
more feeling like 55 or 60 pounds also these modern machines have a way of being calibrated
and there's something called the pull weight and i'm not an expert stringer by any means there's
master stringers that can talk about this in a much better way but what i understood is that
when the pull weight is set to high the strings will be overstretched and this is especially true
for polyester strings see what happens is is when strings get over stretched they don't snap
back in place so by the time you get your racket that's freshly strung the strings are already dead
before you even hit one ball with it so what is the tension that you should be stringing at with
the strings that i'm recommending it has to be under 52 pounds and if you want my honest answer
i think you should string in the 40s personally i string my rackets in the low 40s if you string
it above 50 let's say you get your racket to be strong at 55 co polyester molofilament strings
like i said the way these strings get pulled they get over stretched and the racquet comes back
stiff as a board and it's completely dead anyway so what happens is you hit a ball and of course
your arm is going to be killing you after a few minutes so my recommendation is do not go over 52
pounds and the best thing to do is stay in the 40 range and finally i'm going to address some of you
guys that wrote how they ruined their arm playing with certain rackets or certain strings and this
is something that's really really complex because tennis elbow or arm pain in general can come from
many different sources and i'm going to make a separate video on this explaining
it in great detail so just because you have experienced pain with a certain combination of
racket and string it doesn't mean that somebody else is going to experience the same thing
you guys hear that sound that's that kirschbaum super smash orange strung at 35 pounds listen to that
it is super loose now when i play for real i probably need 40 but there's absolutely nothing
wrong with going low on the tension if those strings that i mentioned at the beginning of the
video that hundred percent polyester the string that doesn't exist anymore and those actually you
needed the string a little bit tighter but this modern stuff this co polyester monofilament you
can go super loose on the tension it's not going to hurt your control don't worry if anything you
want to take out from this video is you reduce the tension on your racket obviously the tighter
you go the tighter the string bed is going to be and it's going to be tougher on your arm
don't be scared to go loose and again if you like your strings and you have no pain it doesn't
matter what string you play with keep going with it but be careful when you give recommendations
to other people because your body got used to this particular material and somebody else might
experience completely different results this is why there's so many different string companies
out there we're all going to be different we all have a different muscle memory and we're going to
be used to different materials but generally speaking the tips that i gave you today when
it comes to strings the type of strings that I recommended are great for the recreational
level and you should definitely give them a try if you're experiencing pain in your arm