What Is Swing Weight and Why It Matters in Pickleball

In Pickleball, when people want a maneuverable paddle the first thing they usually ask is “How much does that paddle weigh?” and they are looking for an answer such as: “7.8oz”, “8.2oz,” and so on. But, I’m here to tell you that static weight is largely a useless metric that people over emphasize because it’s what they are used to. What you should really be asking to learn how maneuverable a paddle plays, is “What is the swing weight of that paddle?”

Swing weight is what people actually want to know, they just don’t realize it.

Pickleball swing weight range breakdown

Just like static weight, swing weight is a range of numbers. It goes roughly as low as 90, and all the way up to 130 for paddles in stock form. The lower the number is, the more maneuverable it is in your hand. Here is how I would breakdown the swing weight ranges:

So, if you’re someone who wanted a very maneuverable paddle and struggle with heavy paddles, you should be looking for paddles that have a swing weight range from 90-111.

How big of a swing weight gap is noticeable?

For most people, I believe they can feel the difference of 5 points or higher between two different paddles. If you gave someone two paddles, one with a 110 swing weight, and another that was 115, most people should be able to pretty easily tell these two paddles apart from swinging them around.

Once you get up to a 10 point swing weight gap (110 vs 120 for example) this should be VERY obvious to anyone picking up the two paddles. Anything less than 5 points will probably take a skilled person to notice the difference.

Why does static weight not matter in Pickleball?

The problem with static weight is that it doesn’t tell you where most of the weight is distributed within your paddle. For example, if you had a 9oz paddle, perfectly balanced it would be 4.5oz on half of the paddle, and another 4.5oz in the other half. But this is rarely how paddles are built. Usually the weight is distributed more heavily to one side of the paddle than another.

The further the weight is distributed toward the head of the paddle, (further from your hand) the harder it is going to feel to swing, which means the swing weight is higher.

So, you could take two paddles that have identical static weights of 9oz, but if one paddles is 7oz of weight distributed near the head, and 2oz near the handle, it’s going to feel much slower to swing than if you had a paddle with 7oz of weight in the handle and 2oz in the head.

This is why I say static weight doesn't matter. Because it doesn't tell you how the weight is distributed.

Swing weight hammer analogy

To give a simple analogy to understand, imagine you swing a hammer normal, vs upside down. The static weight doesn't change no matter how you hold it, but how the weight is distributed changes drastically. With the hammer upside down, it will feel easy to swing (very maneuverable), but if you tried to hit a nail, it wouldn't have very much plow through to knock the nail in place.

Now if you flip it back to normal, it will feel harder to swing (less maneuverable) but it would easily hit a nail into place (more plow through).

This is exactly what is happening with swing weight differences between Pickleball paddles.

Is a lower swing weight always better?

Now you might be wondering, if a lower swing weight means the paddle is faster to swing, wouldn’t I always want the lowest swing weight possible? The answer is unfortunately not that simple. Swing weight is a trade off between how maneuverable the paddle is, and how much the paddle plows through the ball when you strike it.

Paddles with higher swing weights don’t get pushed around by the ball nearly as much and can often have more power on full swings. The lower the swing weight is, it can be easier for the ball to push your paddle around when defending hard drives or overheads, which can also lead to the paddle feeling less stable.

So, you want to find the highest swing weight you’re comfortable swinging, because it gives your paddle more mass to hit the ball with. Very light paddles in the 90-104 range often suffer from being pushed around too easily by the ball.

So, swing weight is a trade off of how maneuverable you want it to be, and how much your paddle can push the ball around.

Some players will prefer to optimize for hand speed, while others may be fine with slower hand speed to gain more plow through and stability from their paddle. It's all about knowing which tradeoff is more important for you.

What swing weight is right for you?

This is a very personal question, and the best way to learn your preferred swing weight is to try a couple paddles and figure out which ones you like for how maneuverable they are, and which ones you thought were too slow. Then you can use our paddle database and search for those paddles to learn what the swing weights are for those models. Once you know the number, now you have a range that you enjoy, and don’t enjoy.

At the end of the day, you just have to go out and try a handful of paddles to learn your preferred range.

If I had to give a blind recommendation, I would say that most people should be safe with a paddle that is in the average category. That would be 112-118.

How is swing weight measured?

Swing weight in Pickleball is often measured by a small device called a Briffidi SW1 with the 5CM Pickleball adapter. You place the paddle into the cradle with a smartphone, and it swings the paddle back and forth to get the swing weight measurement. This is the most commonly used and accepted swing weight device for Pickleball. Tennis swing weight machines have a measuring point of 10CM from the butt cap, so if you put a Pickleball paddle in it, you’ll get a completely different swing weight number than what you commonly see in our industry.

Unfortunately there is not an easy way to measure swing weight at home outside of buying a Briffidi SW1 which is around $300. However, most people really don’t need to own a swing weight machine unless they are really into tinkering with paddles and knowing all the metrics about it. Usually you can use the manufacturer's listed specs our our database to learn the swing weights of those paddles.

Shapes have a big impact on swing weight

The shape you choose for your paddle can have a big impact on the swing weight of your paddle. There are three common shapes in Pickleball. Elongated, hybrid, and widebody. These are the average swing weights of each paddle shape in our database:

• Elongated: 117
• Hybrid: 113
• Widebody: 108

So, what this means for you, is if you’re looking for a light weight paddle, it’s going to be easier to find that on average in a widebody paddle than it is in an elongated. If you use our paddle database tool and filter by swing weight, at the time of writing this article, of the 320+ paddles in our database, only 14 elongated paddles have a swing weight below 111, whereas there are 68 widebody paddles that are 111 or lower.

On the flip side, this means that elongated paddles will have more plow through out of the box, whereas you might need to add weight to a widebody paddle to achieve the same amount of plow through.

Can you lower the swing weight of a paddle?

This is a very common question, and the answer is a bit technical. Generally speaking no, you cannot lower the swing weight of your paddle. People often think that by adding weight to the handle of your paddle that it lowers the swing weight of your paddle, but it doesn’t. You can’t make something lighter by adding more weight to it. However, adding weight to the handle does lower the balance point of your paddle, which is sometimes perceived as being more maneuverable by some people. But, when you do that the swing weight will never go down.

Now, where you can technically influence swing weight is by choking up higher on your paddle. The Briffidi SW1 measures swing weight by choking up 5CM up from the butt cap of your paddle. If you choke up higher than this, you are actually making the paddle more maneuverable to swing. By choking up higher, you are bringing the weight closer to your hand, which lowers the effective swing weight. By choking up an extra inch above the 5CM measured point, you can lower your paddles swing weight by up to 20 points, which is a MASSIVE difference in swing weight. That takes a paddle from the heavy category at 120, all the way down to the very light category at 100.

So, if you’re willing to choke up higher on the handle of your paddle, you can effectively reduce the swing weight of your paddle.

Can you increase the swing weight of a paddle if it's too light?

You can! Depending on where you place the weight on your paddle will determine how much you increase the swing weight. Below are examples of adding weight and how drastically you can change the swing weight with the same amount of weight applied to the paddle.

In stock form, the Franklin Aurelius 14mm has a swing weight of only 98. This puts it in the very light category. Now watch what happens if we take 10 grams of weight and add it to the throat. In this experiment, we used the 5 gram Slyce Slyders which are a convenient way to quickly adjust the weight on your paddle.

As you can see here, by placing 10 grams of weight on the paddle near the top of the bottom corners, the swing weight went up to 102, which is still firmly in the very light category. A 4 point swing weight change is very minimal.

By moving the weights just below the top corners, we've gone from a stock swing weight of 98 (very light) to 106 (light). Still very maneuverable, but now we are starting to approach that 10 point swing weight change that becomes noticeable to feel.

By placing the exact same weight at the head of the paddle, we've gone from a stock swing weight of 98 to 115. That's nearly a 20 point jump in swing weight. Which remember, everyone would easily be able to tell the difference in a 10 point swing weight change, so nearly 20 is a MASSIVE change.

The exact same amount of weight was placed on the paddle, but where it was placed drastically altered how maneuverable the paddle would be.

So, just remember this: The lower you place the weight on your paddle, the less it will impact the swing weight. The higher you go, the more it will impact your swing weight and increase plow through.

So, if you wanted to add weight without making your paddle to hard to maneuver, staying below the half way point of your paddle is a good place to start. If you want an even deeper dive into weighting your paddle, check out our guide here. Weight can drastically alter how your paddle plays, and it's as cheap as $10 to get started.

Where can you find the swing weights of Pickleball paddles?

Thankfully these days, swing weight is very commonly posted by the manufacturers in their spec sheets on their website. However, some companies still haven’t moved toward publishing swing weight numbers. That’s why we built our Pickleball paddle database where you can filter by swing weight and a dozen other metrics to help make finding a paddle with your ideal specs easier. If you want to filter by light weight paddles, you can drag the swing weight slider to be below 111 and it will only show you paddles that match that swing weight criteria. If you don't know where to start to find your first paddle, you can take our pickleball paddle quiz to receive personalized recommendations.