Sunset Badminton

When should I restring my badminton racket?

Advice
person stringing

This is a question we get asked a lot and the answer varies depending on a variety of factors. Depending on your play style, how competitive you are, how often you play, and how serious you take things like hit feel and playability all influence how often you should restring your racket.

How often do you play?

The general consensus is that in a year, you should restring your racket as many times as you play in one week. So if you play an average of two times a week, you should restring your racket twice a year; or every six months. Likewise, if you play four times a week, you should restring four times a year; every 3 months. That’s generally good advice but you should take into consideration some of the other factors listed below. Consider this measure as the baseline for all of the advice below.

Do you compete?

How competitive you are influences when you should restring your racket. If you are a recreational player and only play for fun or fitness, then you can probably go longer between restringings than if you were competing in tournaments or very competitive club play on a frequent (weekly or monthly) basis. Competitive play means that you are likely harder on your strings during your matches and thus they will have a tendency to wear out faster than people simply dinking around the shuttle a few times a week with friends. As a competitor, we would recommend a restring at 1.5 or even two times as frequently as the baseline.

What is your skill level?

If you are a beginner to intermediate player, you likely are not hitting the shuttle as hard as a more advanced player and thus aren’t putting the kinds of dynamic load on your strings advanced players would be. This means that your strings will likely last a bit longer so you don’t need to restring as frequently. For beginner to intermediate players, you can probably delay restringing for a month or two beyond the baseline recommendation if you needed to (cost or access limiting), and for advanced players, we would increase the frequency by a month or two.

Do you prize hit feel and playability?

Nothing quite compares to the crisp resilience of hitting a shuttle on fresh strings. To many players, this is part of a great badminton experience. Over time, strings wear out, lose their stiffness, lose a bit of tension, and generally start to feel, “muddy.” This presents itself as a lackluster hitting experience, a loss of power and control, and a dulling of the hitting sound. If you are one of those players who really like how new strings feel (and this is perfectly ok btw…it’s part of what makes badminton such a fun experience), then you should definitely restring more frequently. On average, most strings will start to lose their “feel” after a month or two so if cost is not prohibitive, we’d recommend restringing every few months, regardless of how often you play, to maintain the best play experience. Don’t forget that things like heat and simply being strung at high tension for months (even if just sitting in your bag) will break strings down.

Stringing Options

Of course, Sunset Badminton offers a variety of restringing options for all rackets and player types. As an official Ashaway reseller, we carry some of the best badminton strings available. Reach out to us to schedule a restringing appointment today!

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restringing