The Injury Risk Score is a community-powered metric that turns anonymous player reports into a reliable, comparable signal. Here's the full methodology.
The Injury Risk Score (IRS) is a number from 0 to 100 assigned to each padel racket, reflecting the injury risk reported by the players who use it. A score of 0 means no reports. A score of 100 means extremely high reported injury risk across many players.
The IRS is not a measure of a racket's quality, playability, or brand reputation — only the injury signal from community reports.
Each report carries a severity weight. Not all injuries are equal — a severe injury that ended your season is weighted more heavily than mild post-match soreness.
| Severity | Weight | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Minor | 1 | Soreness, no missed play |
| Moderate | 2 | Modified play or 1–4 weeks off |
| Severe | 3 | Stopped play, 4+ weeks off |
The average severity score for a racket is computed as: Σ(severity_weight) / n_reports
A racket with 2 severe reports looks worse than one with 200 moderate reports — but it shouldn't, because the sample is tiny. We use Bayesian shrinkage to blend each racket's score toward the global average when the report count is low.
At n=0, the score equals the global mean. At n=30+, the racket's own data dominates.
A racket with 5× more reports than average carries more signal. The volume factor scales the score based on how many reports a racket has relative to the global average across all rackets.
Capped at 3× to prevent a single popular-but-injured racket from dominating the leaderboard.
The scale factor (25) maps the 0–4 severity range to the 0–100 output range. The score is capped at 100.
A spike is flagged when a racket receives significantly more reports in the last 7 days than its historical baseline suggests. We use a Poisson model:
The √ term is the Poisson standard deviation. The threshold corresponds roughly to the 95th percentile upper bound — so spikes are meaningful, not noise.
To prevent a single person from spamming reports for or against a racket:
| Score | Label | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 0–9 | Minimal | Very few or very mild reports |
| 10–34 | Low | Some reports, typically minor |
| 35–59 | Moderate | Meaningful injury signal — worth noting |
| 60–100 | High risk | Strong and severe injury signal |
The IRS is community-sourced data, not a clinical study. It reflects what players report — not causation. A high score may indicate a racket's design is problematic for certain play styles, but it could also reflect the profile of players attracted to that racket (e.g. aggressive smash players reporting elbow issues).
The IRS improves in reliability as report volume grows. Treat low-volume scores (under 10 reports) as indicative only.
The IRS is not medical advice. Always consult a physiotherapist for injury assessment and management.