Xenecore Answers the Arm Injury Epidemic
According to the International Tennis Federation (ITF), half of all tennis players will suffer from tennis elbow. Thirty-four of the top 40 ATP and WTA men and women have been sidelined recently from shoulder, wrist and elbow injury or surgery (TennisInsights.com/Injuries). In the past 30 years, more than 150 million players have suffered an arm injury, according to Mark Kovacs, former USTA sports science director. A Tennis Industry of America (TIA) survey reports that 22 percent of all permanent debilitations for tennis players in the United States comes from an arm injury.
This epidemic did not exist in these vast numbers prior to the advent of hollow empty rackets. Research conducted found that 70 percent of children in intensive tennis training programs suffer an arm injury or arm surgery before the age of 16. Thousands of these young victims were especially vulnerable because of their underdeveloped tendons and muscles.
Children as young as eight-years-old are hitting balls four to five hours a day, and modern composite racquets have “Added too much power and put enormous wear and tear on young bodies,” wrote Martina Navratilova (“Sidelined in their Prime,” Newsweek, 2009). “More injuries are likely unless tennis’s governing bodies fight back against the racquet manufacturers that have hijacked the game.”
Dr. Stuart Miller, head of the ITF’s Technical Commission, after years of studying all possible causes of the injuries, concluded that racket shock is the cause.
The medical examinations from doctors at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia who perform hundreds of surgeries on young tennis players concluded that the cause of the injury was the racket.
In the paper “Influence of Racket Properties on Injuries and Performance in Tennis,” Dr. Ewald M. Hennig concludes that the characteristics of the racket cause racket shock.
“Poor stroking technique is frequently accused, conveniently diverting scrutiny from racquet design. What is good for minimizing elbow damage is low shock (RacquetResearch.com).”
Numerous studies have shown that the characteristics of the racket affect the shock load up to five times, depending on the construction of the rackets. In wood rackets, vibration disappeared quickly. But the new stiffer, lighter and hollow conventional frames do a poor job of snuffing out the vibrations, so they transfer this shock to the arm that can stealthily sabotage the elbow, wrist, forearm and shoulder.”
The most recent published scientific study conducted by Ferrara and Cohen showed that empty hollow rackets have shock durations up to three times that of a Xenecore multi solid-core racket. These rackets shocked for less than 0.2 of a second, compared to an average of 0.7 of a second for the other brands’ empty hollow models. That means, in a typical match with 180 balls, more than 43,000 pounds of force is transmitted from the racket to the arm versus 13,000 pounds of force transmitted from multi-solidcore rackets.
In the abstract “Prediction of Impact Shock Vibrations at Tennis Player’s Wrist,” the authors concluded that shock vibration is higher in super lightweight rackets. This is why Xenecore developed its revolutionary 114-square inch seven ounce super control racket which could become the next dominant form in the industry.
Based on Federal Consumer Safety Product Commission Recall regulations, all conventional hollow empty rackets are technically illegal because of the high likelihood of injury as they transmit well over 100 pounds of force and shock significantly longer than 0.2 seconds at impact.
Xenecore technology was developed to cure this arm injury epidemic. Visit Xenecore.com for more information.
