Tennis racket exercise weight assembly

Claim 1

A selectively weighted and air restrained tennis racket assembly for practice strokes comprising, in combination, a tennis racket with a relatively enlarged eliptical head portion supporting first and second spaced series of crossed interwoven strings under tension and a relatively reduced elongated handle portion attached to and supporting the head portion, a tennis racket head portion cover made of relatively air impervious flexible material forming first and second side sections thereof of the size and shape required and mutually interconnected so as to enclose the periphery and the opposite sides of the head portion of the tennis racket and to releasably secure the tennis racket cover to the head portion of the tennis racket, and an exercise weight assembly including first and second opposed coacting weight elements selectively located lengthwise and transversely of the head portion of said tennis racket and disposed on opposite sides of the crossed interwoven strings and mutually interconnected, said first and said second coacting weight elements respectively including first and second coacting locking surfaces selectively releasably mutually interengaged so as to maintain the first and second weight elements in clamping engagement with the opposite sides of the crossed interwoven strings, and respectively including first and second opposite side surfaces each substantially planar and respectively substantially coplanar with the first and second opposite sides of the head portion of said tennis racket, so as to fit readily within the cover for the head portion of said tennis racket in any selected position lengthwise and transversely of the head portion of the tennis racket, and so as to support and thereby stabilize a substantial central area of the side section of the head portion cover resistant to ambient air pressure during swinging movement of said tennis racket, whereby the restraint upon the swinging movement of said tennis racket assembly during each practice stroke remains more nearly constant throughout the stroke, because the restraint on the tennis racket due to the inertial effect of the exercise weight assembly starts high, decreases with decreasing acceleration, and then increases again with increasing deceleration, and ends high, as an inverse function of the varying rate of the swinging movement, while the restraint on the tennis racket produced by air drag on the head portion cover first increases from zero to a maximum and then decreases to zero again as a direct function of the varying rate of the swinging movement during the same practice stroke, so the forces constraining movement of the tennis racket throughout the practice stroke remain more nearly constant, when both the exercise weight assembly and the cover are mounted in operative relation to the head portion of the tennis racket.