Good post Bob. FYI, I just added a quote on the light grip vs. tight grip resource page.
Regards,
Dave
Regards,
Dave
Loose Grip/Tight Grip and Resulting Cueball Action
- Thread starter Biloxi Boy
- Start date
Nice info, Bob - thanks! (And thanks Dave for curating it.)
So tightening your grip enough to triple your "hand mass" produces only as much effect as increasing your stroke speed 1%. I know which method I'm choosing.
pj
chgo
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Biloxi Boy
Man With A Golden Arm
All of this is a lot to take in and process. I really appreciate the fact that so much research and writing has been taking place in such depth for so long. I am still trying to process all of the information that ya'll have provided.
All that I feel certain of at this point is that spin is a function of speed and offset from center and speed is not appreciably increased or decreased by variations in grip tension. It also seems that a loose grip with a flexible wrist lends itself to a smooth consistent stroke but a tight grip can produce a smooth consistent stroke, too. Follow through is not as important as I thought.
All that I feel certain of at this point is that spin is a function of speed and offset from center and speed is not appreciably increased or decreased by variations in grip tension. It also seems that a loose grip with a flexible wrist lends itself to a smooth consistent stroke but a tight grip can produce a smooth consistent stroke, too. Follow through is not as important as I thought.
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There is all kinds of knowledge.
In this case I believe being self-aware of your personal body mechanics is the important knowledge.
You can keep all the charts and sensors.
Lou Figueroa
Well, yes, but.... In this case I think the the charts and sensors are mostly telling us to make a nice smooth stroke and not obsess about our grip. One detail from the charts that is often told to beginners is that you shouldn't stop the stroke before you get to the cue ball.
I guess I must be the only one who doesn’t need a chart to know that.
But if that’s what it takes, goferit.
Lou Figueroa
Follow through is extremely important, natural follow through on any shot where there is room to do it. A robot with a two inch stroke could play perfect pool. However, our minds anticipate what is coming next. Roughly one inch of follow through is very important and for that inch to be perfect the other part of follow through is needed.
I was talking with an instructor and shot a table length thin cut on a nine footer to show something I was talking about. I used a very exaggerated follow through, almost to the joint. That much wasn't needed, however I pocketed the ball on the first try. The instructor asked me what the exaggerated follow through did. I told him it wasn't what it did but what it kept me from doing. I had over two feet of shaft in a dead straight line to the target at the end of my stroke. To do that you just can't have much wrong with your normal stroke.
Try to accelerate through the cue ball then let your hand coast to a natural stop. You can't really accelerate through the cue ball but if you don't try to the muscles in your arm will do things you don't want them to do.
Hu
Thinking something and knowing something are two different things..
lol.
The experiments and hypothesis to be tested are always available to you right there on the table for you to max out.
You think something -- test it out. That's how you will eventually "know" something.
Lou Figueroa
wax on
wax off
That method gives you anecdotal evidence...but not empirical truth ..
First you must develop a test that removes human error and confirmation bias..
Bob and Dave have been sorting the wheat from chaff in the pool world for decades.. they deserve respect for that work not derision and eye rolls..
Lots of players "Think" they know.... sometimes empirical evidence supports their theory and sometimes it doesn't..
To blow off fact based reality in favor of self confirmed theory.. is not only intellectually dishonest it is a rejection of truth in its purest form...
Best of luck with that..:thumbup:
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Bull-sheet-o.
There’s nothing antedotal about what you can do or can’t do on the table. You can do it one way or you can’t. And, it does not matter one wit what the science says if doing the contrary gives you good results.
As I have often said: every player develops their own reality when it comes to playing pool. And from what I have seen over the decades is that those who are slaves to the science and perfect form are the players most often doomed to mediocrity. I see it at the pool hall all the time: those that have paid for lessons or are always watching instructional videos on their phones are usually the worst players in the room.
Lou Figueroa
To base findings on a 100 lbs of force leaves out most of the way pool is done. Say you zone the test to med and lower speed; like slow rolling with a death grip. Now what?
I think I better go over some of the physics fundamentals of pool shots.
The force from tip to ball is for a very short time so the force has to be high to get the ball moving at all. Consider a shot that would send the cue ball the length of the table in about three seconds (about 1 meter/second when struck in the center). This is a typical to low speed shot. This is somewhat slower than a lag to see who breaks.
The average force required during the millisecond of tip contact is about 38 pounds. But the force is not constant during that millisecond. It starts at zero, builds up to a peak value at peak tip compression, and then goes back to zero as the tip expands back. (It is during this expansion phase that you notice the energy loss in the tip. The tip does not push back as hard when expanding as it pushes when being compressed.)
A reasonable assumption is that the peak force from the tip is about twice the average force. For the slow shot under discussion, that peak force will be about 76 pounds. An actual lag, depending on the speed of the cloth, will have about 100 pounds of peak force.
A break shot, which will send the cue ball at 10 meters/second or 22 MPH -- a good but not shattering break -- will have a peak force of around ten times the above or close to 750 pounds. Typically break tips are harder and will have lower contact times and higher peak forces so I would not be surprised to see 1500 pounds for a top power breaker using a phenolic tip.
I suppose those numbers right there tell you how futile it is to expect your death grip to put significant extra force against the cue ball.
But why would someone want to increase the effective weight of the cue stick? A heavier stick runs into miscue problems sooner than a light one on extreme spin shots.
In any case, a death grip on a soft shot seems like an excellent way to get the wrong speed.
(If someone would like to check my arithmetic for the 38 pounds of average force:
ball mass = 6 ounces = 0.17 kg
velocity = 1 m/s
momentum = mv = .17 kg*m/s
time = 0.001 sec
force = momentum/time = (0.17kg*m/s)/0.001s = 170 newtons = 38 pounds force
)
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Not concerned with the numbers on a text book stroke and certainly not table length lags. For instance you can approach the ball slow enough that the tip lands and actually pushes the ball which then decays into a few inches of travel. Just looking for zones where the the grip makes a difference in force.
Tip to cloth...:smile:
For those with math and physics backgrounds who might be interested, the detailed analysis and some example calculations can be found here:
TP B.22 – How peak tip contact force and contact patch size vary with shot speed, and drop tests
Regards,
Dave
They don't exist. Good luck.
I hope the OP found the analysis interesting. It is only useful to the extent that it prevents useless searches and bizarre, idiosyncratic strokes.
They perhaps don't exist in your publishing zone but even then you do acknowledge slight increases in force or transmission of force with firmer grips; deemed academically inconsequential but to me, the physical feedback has everything to do with feel; consistency; repeatability and that _is_ highly relevant to the performance of pool.
Biloxi Boy
Man With A Golden Arm
The information provided is greatly appreciated. Scientific method applied to pool is a novel concept to me, and I am uncertain if it has any practical application for me. I do believe, however, that everything one learns has a positive effect. So, again, thank ya'll.
I believed that there was a correlation between grip and CB reaction. Now, I am not sure. I will probably keep playing as I had before but pay more attention to what I do and what results.
We can measure force applied and resulting speed, but can we quantify spin? If so, do we know what amount of spin is required to produce a given result? Without a known or stipulated base, how do we evaluate percentages of increase or decrease?
I believed that there was a correlation between grip and CB reaction. Now, I am not sure. I will probably keep playing as I had before but pay more attention to what I do and what results.
We can measure force applied and resulting speed, but can we quantify spin? If so, do we know what amount of spin is required to produce a given result? Without a known or stipulated base, how do we evaluate percentages of increase or decrease?
The usual way that people demonstrate different amounts of side spin is to shoot straight into a rail and see how much to the left or right the ball goes (measured in angle or diamonds).
How much follow or draw you get you can see simply by shooting a full draw or follow shot on a nearby ball.
It is usually best to stick with what happens on the table and do your measurements in diamonds.
As for whether detailed info about the physics of the situation is worth anything, I think in this case it's mostly useful to tell you what not to do. Don't fret over whether a loose or tight grip might give you more action, because in themselves they do nothing for the shot. I suggest that you should use the grip that gives you the most consistency.
Lots of players obsess about getting more spin and hope a new tip or a new shaft or a new grip or a new placement of their back foot is going to help them. Most players who get only paltry spin fail because they do not hit far enough from center.