Testing the Waters

Speaking from experience this past winter, we know that the Swax Lax lacrosse training ball is great for indoor play. Now that it’s time to practice outside, however, the Swax Lax Team has been wondering how the Swax Lax ball holds up outdoors. We’re still using our batch from last summer, which tells us they hold up pretty well. But we wanted to try a more definitive test...

Rainy Days, Pools, and Oceans

What would happen if a Swax Lax ball accidentally ended up in the family pool? Was left outside during a summer rain storm? Landed in a pond at the local park? Was tossed into the ocean down the shore? To answer these questions, the Swax Lax Team of interns devised a wet-ball durability test.

To start the test, our summer interns placed a few Swax Lax balls in a bucket of water. After four days of soaking, we took the balls out of the bucket and went through some of the steps we typically use to check the quality of our new ball shipments. These tests include weighing (wet ball was 185 grams), measuring the circumference, and throwing the ball many times against a hard cement wall. As we did this, we were able to check out the wet balls’ response in comparison to a dry ball.

Never Get Us Down

Once we went through this process with each of the soaked balls, we were able to see the effects the water had on the shape, weight, and pliability. What we found was that the balls had absorbed some of the water causing it to weigh a few grams more than a typical regulation lacrosse ball (as well as a dry Swax Lax ball!).

To test it’s shape, JC, one of our interns, threw the ball many times against a wall using a lacrosse stick to see if the shape would change. We found that when water was fully absorbed by the ball, it was very malleable. Knowing that the seams could be a potential failure point, we kept a close eye on them for tears or pulls. We found that the seams faired very well throughout the entire testing process. We also found that the water had no effect on the material of the ball.

Hangin’ Around

At the moment we’re letting the balls hang around outside in the sun to study how they respond to soaking and re-drying. Stay tuned — we’ll keep you posted on the results!

Update: After two days sitting in the sun the average weight per ball was down to 167 grams.