What is Flick Weight and why is it important?
As usual - here's a summary for those of us with 20 browser tabs open that want to understand it all in 10 seconds.
Two things:
1. when people say a paddle is heavy - they often don't mean it's heavy - they mean it's unbalanced (has a high flick weight)
2. A high swing weight does NOT always mean a paddle is slow at the line (because it could have a low flick weight)
Ok - let's define some terms and go through some experimental (and anecdotal) data and see where we get to.
There is an important conventional wisdom about weights in pickleball — and it’s the following:
A high swing weight paddle is GREAT for plough-through/power in drives — but is BAD at the kitchen line because it is heavy/slow.
We've heard this from experienced players, from weekend warriors and even from some self-described paddle nerds.
The purpose of this blog post is to point out that this conventional wisdom is at best short-sighted and at worst could be completely WRONG.
We believe it is absolutely possible to have a high swing weight paddle which is light feeling and fast at the line.
And if you're wondering HOW - that's great - read on.
There are 3 main kinds of weights discussed in racket sports. In pickleball they are
- Actual Weight: (aka Static Weight) What a paddle weighs — e.g. 8.1oz
- Swing Weight: What a paddle feels like to SWING -from the shoulder — e.g. 119
- Twist Weight: A paddle’s resistance to rotation about its longest axis (in other words - stability in off center hits) — e.g. 5.9
With the exception of the very first one — which is of course the actual measured weight of a paddle — even though the others are all called weights, they’re not really weights — they are a measure of the distribution of weight.
And there’s one more important representation of weight that hasn't been discussed very often in pickleball — and we call it
FLICK WEIGHT
A tip of the hat here to Jon Neeter from the Santa Monica Pickleball Center — who first suggested the term Flick Weight.
Flick weight is also a distribution of weight — and can also be thought of as a movement of the balance point. Flick weight relates to what a paddle feels like to FLICK - from the wrist.
A high flick weight paddle is HEAVY at the line and slow to flick.
A low flick weight paddle is LIGHT at the line and fast to flick.
What voodoo is this?
Let’s dig into this a little bit.
Balance Points are definitely a thing in Tennis also — the racket nerds among you will perhaps recall tennis rackets as being described as head-heavy or head-light. But in tennis, shots requiring a wrist flicking action are extremely rare. Too much potential for injury.
In Pickleball the reverse is true — there is a lot of wrist action — especially on the kitchen line.
In a groundstroke shot — in general — the arm is pivoting at the shoulder and the entire paddle swings through. But in a flick (or even a roll) there is a lot more wrist action involved.
We measured a lot of retail paddles from various different brands using a Briffidi BP 1 Racquet Balance Device and we propose the following scale for Flick Weight.
After measuring 20 different top tier paddles from different brands — an average balance point (amongst the balanced feeling paddles) was 24.1mm (as measured from the edge of the buttcap on the BP1)
Using that as an arbitrary zero we then tested putting 1/4oz (7g), 1/2oz (14g), 3/4oz (21g) and 1oz (28g) weights onto the buttcap and checking what happens to the balance point, what happens to the swing weight - and in turn what happens to the feel of the paddle.
The answers, when we asked people to compare these paddles, were quite surprising.
Note that this is very similar process to adding a Slyce speed cap to your paddle but thus far we were not aware of anyone trying to instrument and analyse the process.
The surprising thing about balancing your paddle
When people say a paddle is heavy — they THINK it means the paddle weighs a lot. Or if they are paddle nerds — they might THINK it has a high swing weight.
And therefore think it will make the paddle slow at the kitchen line.
But while this is of course possible (after all the most likely way you get a high SW paddle is if the weight is distributed forwards therefore the Flick Weight is also high) - it could easily be the case that the paddle is simply unbalanced - and people are just equating head-heavy with high-swingweight or with high static weight, neither of which is necessarily true.
We did a number of blind tests with multiple 4.5 and 5.5 players — handing them a 9oz paddle and an 8oz paddle and asking them which one is heavier.
They all hefted them, swung them around, mimed a few flick volleys and then confidently (every single one of them) selected the 8oz paddle as the heavier paddle.
Why would they think this?
Because the paddles were differently balanced.
The 8oz paddle had a flick weight of 6.8 while the 9oz paddle had a flick weight of 3.2.
The human body can much more accurately detect changes in balance than changes in actual weight. (consider shutting your eyes and holding a broom handle in the middle where it’s perfectly balanced — if it moves even a little bit — 1mm either way you know it’s out of balance even without opening your eyes — but if you add 10 grams of weight to without changing the balance you cannot tell the difference)
In short — when people say paddles are heavy — it is highly possible they are talking about flick weight — NOT actual weight or swing weight — even if they think they are.
The Flick Weight scale
It's of course possible to talk about balance point movements about an arbitrary zero in fractions of inches or mm - but we propose the following simplified scale:
- Flick weight 6 = balanced paddle
- Flick weight below 6 = head light, faster paddle
- Flick weight above 6 = head heavy, slower paddle
The simple rule of thumb is that for every 1/4oz (7g) of weight you add to the butt-cap the flick weight DECREASES by 1
So, starting with a balanced paddle (value 6) — a Flick weight 5 paddle is a little bit faster — (1/4oz added) but a full ounce will give you a Flick weight 2 paddle (which is very very light and snappy in the hand) - yet keeps almost the exact same Swing Weight.
Why is this important?
The most important aspect of this is that we are
Uncoupling Swing Weight and hand speed.
Many players in the industry believe that a higher swing weight paddle cannot be fast in the hands.
Yet they want higher swing weight to have more power and plough-through for ground stroke.
So thus far they have had a conundrum. Select a low swing weight paddle (e.g. 115–118) to have fast hands and deal with the lighter weight during serves and rips — or select a high swing weight paddle (e.g. 122) and worry about it being slow in the hands.
Players attempted to compromise by buying a lower swing weight paddle and then adding weight to it to increase the swing weight — not realising that the balance point shift works against you.
But if you think about and understand the concept of Flick Weight (and the physics associated with shifting a balance point) you now know that is not true.
You now CAN get a paddle with a higher swing weight that has high flick weight (i.e. is head heavy) and easily reduce the flick weight — without affecting swing weight.
You can have the best of both worlds.
Additionally — even you don’t consider pro-level tuning like the addition of a Slyce cap (or manually adding tungsten tape under the grip) — remember that you can make a meaningful balance weight shift with only 7g or 14g.
Consider this — even just replacing your stock grip with a Hesacore and an overgrip (such as a Yonex Supergrap) is an approximate Flick Weight decrease of a little over 2 points. (because you’re adding 23g — not all of that is at the buttcap but a lot of it is quite close)
That is a substantial difference.
And that’s before you start adding 1/4oz or 1/2oz or full 1oz to the buttcap.
The bottom line is — if you want to Pro-Tune your paddle — you need to keep Flick Weight in mind.
All the more so if you’re adding weight to increase your swing weight.
Now get out there and tune your paddle ;)