Unnatural postures have been identified as risk factors for hand/wrist injury problems. These postures are usually adopted among table tennis players. In attempt to alleviate wrist discomfort, alternative table tennis rackets have been designed to reduce awkward postures. Tenaly racket and Brodmann racket are the most representative rackets and are both currently available in the market. Additionally, a new horizontal racket was designed for this study, aiming to reduce wrist motion in the radial-ulnar plane. In this research, Tenaly racket, Brodmann racket, horizontal racket, together with traditional racket were evaluated in terms of performance, wrist range of motion, muscle activities and subjective rating. Thirty Iowa State University students participated in this study. They were divided into two groups (experienced and novice) based on preliminary test. In the experiment, participants were required to perform three stroke types: forehand drive, backhand drive and service with these four rackets. Hitting rate, wrist range of motion and muscle activities were obtained during the experiment. Participants were asked to fill out a subjective rating form after the experiment. Results from the experiment showed that subjects had best performance with Brodmann racket and worst performance with horizontal racket. Horizontal racket was the least favored racket in both groups. However, preferences of traditional, Tenaly and Brodmann racket were different between the two groups. The experienced group strongly favored traditional and Tenaly racket because they are powerful to speed balls. In the novice group, the subjective ranking scores of these three rackets were not significant. Also, Tenaly racket was proved as the only one that could improve the posture. No significant was found in terms of muscle activities.
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