Located in the heart of Suwanee, GA at 333 Main Street, tennis players will find a friendly family-run tennis business with a passion for providing local tennis players the absolute best in racquet services. When our shoppe opened in fall 2011, it served as showroom for our online tennis gift products and a friendly stringing boutique for our local customer base of 400+ strong who we have served for 8 years in a non-retail setting. The location has been good to us providing many blessings. As a result, this May we are expanding and will be moving into a larger space where we will be able to feature additional products.
For many years we have been assisting local customers who are experiencing arm pain. When the root of the pain is equipment related we are able to help our customers find relief either through a change in strings/stringing, modification of the frame or even by recommending a new frame.
We found the rewards of helping our local customers to be fulfilling so we took the information we used to a larger audience via our blog. Our blog entries on the subject led to telephone calls and many pleasant conversations about racquets and equipment. We noted that people were always asking for specific frame recommendations. We decided to put together a blog entry where we listed arm-friendly frames based on specifications and what we have observed in our local setting. Since we did not sell frames our advice was completely without bias toward any particular frame or company. Judging from the web site traffic, we soon found this to be among our most popular blog entries and decided to make it an annual review.
When we decided to expand the size of our local shoppe we made the decision to bring in tennis racquets. Our vision is not to carry the hottest-selling or most popular frames on the market, rather we will only stock/carry frames that have what we consider to be arm-friendly specifications or exceptional dampening properties. We want to be a resource for our community where customers can come and purchase any frame we offer and be confident in knowing that it is a healthy frame. If they find it on our shelves, it definitely meets or surpasses the high standards we have set in regard to being arm friendly.
Toward that end we are delighted to announce that we are now partners with Donnay. We find the dual core technology and Xenecore used in their frames to be extremely effective at dampening shock. We are proud to offer several great playing and arm-friendly Donnay frames which are now in stock. We are currently play testing frames from other companies as well and hope to be adding more frames in the near future.
Guts and Glory Tennis, both the local shoppe and online store, will focus on being a resource for tennis players concerned about preventing arm and elbow issues. While we will no longer publish an annual listing of arm-friendly racquet frames, we will make the frames we carry available to both our local and online customers. We are hoping the many players we have assisted over the years in terms of making frame suggestions will turn to us when it is time to purchase a new arm-friendly frame.
Locally we are currently in the process of developing a demo program where the frames we carry will be available for extended play testing. Demos will be available for $5.00 per racquet for a 3 day period or customers who want to playtest multiple frames for an extended period of time can pay $25.00 for a full month of unlimited playtesting. All demo fees collected will be applied to the purchase of a new frame from us.
Gregg Peterman on said:
Need info on arm friendly racket – I am 4.0 singles player currently using babolat aero pro drive
GGTennis on said:
If you are local please stop by and try our demo program. We have had good success with the Donnay Formula as an arm-friendlier alternative to the AeroPro Drive.
Stephanie Dixon on said:
I have been using Babolat pure storm for a few years with no arm issues. I string it with tourna BHBR 16 at tension of 50. Now there is the babolat pure control on the market which I compared with the Srorm. Specs seem to be good. What do you think of this frame? Also I wanted to try the new Tourna string Big Hitter black 7 which is a copoly. Any opinions on this string?
sepideh on said:
I have been using Babolat pure storm for a few years with no arm issues. I string it with tourna BHBR 16 at tension of 50. Now there is the babolat pure control and pure strike tour on the market which I compared with the Srorm. Specs seem to be good. What do you think of this frame? Also I wanted to try the new Tourna string Big Hitter black 7 which is a copoly. Any opinions on this string?
Gary Sharp on said:
Is the Wilson Juice an arm friendly racket
GGTennis on said:
We do not consider it to have arm-friendly specifications. The stiffness is higher than we prefer. That said, many play with it without issue.
Gary Sharp on said:
I have the Juice 100 version which is the stiffest and lightest of the Juices. Does that make it even worse?
GGTennis on said:
It is not a frame we recommend to our customers, but that does NOT mean you should not give it a try.
Geri Novia on said:
I play with a Head LiquidMetal 4. Any suggestions for an arm-friendly racket to replace this one?
JRB on said:
I switched from a LM 4 to a Microgel Radical. There is a lot less power, and it’s an adjustment to get used to the head-lightness, but I’m definitely happy with it, and I have not had any arm issues since then.
GGTennis on said:
We suggest any of the frames we carry in the Donnay or Pacific lines as well as any on the list of this blog entry. http://www.gutsandglorytennis.com/blog/2011/08/ggt-extras-elbow-friendly-racquet-list-for-2011/
Mark on said:
I am looking for arm friendly racket to my 12 years old kid who have had arm problems. He has been playing successfully with Wilson Blade 98 (K factor and BLX) for two years and now he has couple of weeks break of tennis. I think that Blade has been too cruel to his arm. Question is that is Wilson Pro Staff Six.One 95 more arm friendly than Blade? this will be the first demo racket for him, racket specs are very interesting.
Gary Sharp on said:
I have a Wilson Juice 100 is I am having issues with my arm. How about the Head Youtek IG Radical, Prince EXO3 Rebel 98 or EXO Tour 100
GGTennis on said:
We have heard mixed reviews on the Youtek IG Radical. I am not familiar with the Rebel 98 specs off the top of my head. The EXO Tour is supposed to be quite good, but I usually do not recommend port-style frames for reasons other than arm-friendliness. If you look at our reply in this thread from July 18 you will see a link to a list of racquets we reviewed last year and recommended.
Mark on said:
What about arm friendliness of this racket? Wilson Pro Staff Six.One 95 (it’s new 2012 model).
It is very low powered racket.
GGTennis on said:
@Mark – We have published an article on elbow friendly frames and intentionally listed the criteria we use so that people who want to know about frames that are not listed or newer can check the specifications for themselves. http://www.gutsandglorytennis.com/blog/2011/08/ggt-extras-elbow-friendly-racquet-list-for-2011/ The six.one 95 offers two string patterns. The specs for these are a little stiffer than we prefer but otherwise they look okay. The weight is good on them.
Gary Sharp on said:
How about the 90
Gary Sharp on said:
Do you have a certain brace that you recommend
GGTennis on said:
We do not have any braces we recommend. The Tommy Copper elbow sleeve is interesting.
Mr A Liguori on said:
Dear Sir/madam,i am currently playing with Donnay pro one 16×19 i find them comfortable this is important since i have had surgery on both my elbow and shloulder over the past several years. How ever i do find them slightly heavy over time and being an allcourt type player manouvrebility can some times hinder me. i am 52 and i find that maybe my swing speed isnt what it was especailly after all the traumas my arm has endured. If i have time i can swing them with a good result, however against faster and harder hitting oppenents i feel i am slightly late due to the heavy feeling. I tried a lighter prokennex and i played much better! however i liked the feel and comfort of the xenecore filled raquet. The Lighter Pro one Oversize ext maybe good but having seen the review by TW they sited it to be very powerful and will the extra 1/2″ make it slightly less manouvreable?
GGTennis on said:
The Donnay Pro One is a nice stick. The OS version is probably not the answer for you. The SW is also on the higher side of things. Have you playtested the Silver lite? A decent stick with good dampening and easy to wield around the court. I also was extremely impressed with the feel of the new Mantis 295. Extremely easy to swing and excellent dampening.
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Hari Chinnamareddy on said:
I am currently demoing the new Wilson Blade 93 tennis racket. Is it considered arm friendly? I assume so because it has a good static weight of 12 oz strung and very head light. The only number that bothers me is the stiffness rating which is 67 but Wilson claims it has amplifeel technology that should dampen the vibrations a lot. Can you please clarify? Thank you and appreciate your response.
GGTennis on said:
67 is stiffer than we prefer. That said, sometimes the dampening technologies do help with the amount of shock reaching the body. For me, it is not a slam dunk in term of confidence against equipment related tennis elbow, but it may be just fine. I have not run into anyone using that racquet with elbow issues. Hope this helps.
ODia on said:
Why is that nowhere do you talk about Prokennex? I understand that they make the arm-friendilest tennis rackets. I suffer from tennis elbow and am looking for the best racket possible for my condition. Thank you!
GGTennis on said:
We discuss advantages of Pro Kennex racquets in another blog entry. http://www.gutsandglorytennis.com/blog/2011/08/ggt-extras-elbow-friendly-racquet-list-for-2011/
The Kinetic technology that Pro Kennex uses is quite effective. This blog post was written when we decided to bring in Donnay frames due to their dampening properties. Unfortunately racquet sales turned out to not be a profit center for us so we are stepping out of that part of the business for now.