Carbonex 20 Muscle
Model CAB-20MS
Price history
Not enough dated pre-owned sales yet for a price chart — our threshold is 3. 3 verified sales on record so far.
3 verified transactions on record · USD · methodology
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Carbonex 20 Muscle: the 2002–05 Carbonex 20 with Yonex’s Muscle Power Frame
A Carbonex with a muscle frame
Yonex Japan’s badminton home page of early April 2002 tagged two racquets NEW: the Muscle Power 90 and the Carbonex 20 Muscle, item CAB20MS. Yonex’s line for the second was that the Muscle Power Frame raised smash and drive speed by 3%. The racquet took the name of the long-selling Carbonex 20 and added that frame, the raised archways between the grommets that Yonex had first used on the Ti10 in 1999 and named a series after with the Muscle Power 100 in 2000. An Isometric, the 750 Muscle of 2000–01, had carried the frame and the word “Muscle” before it; it has its own page. The “Muscle” in the name means the frame only. The 20 Muscle has no Ultimum Ti, the titanium material of the Muscle Power 90 and the later Carbonex 30 Muscle. It was a separate item with its own price, materials and color, sold beside the plain Carbonex 20, which Yonex Japan filed among its 2004 old models while the 20 Muscle stayed into 2005.
What the Muscle Power Frame did
Yonex Japan described the Muscle Power Frame in 2001 as a patent-pending structure that raises the contact surface between frame and string into a semicircular ridge. Yonex’s US site put it this way: instead of seating the string on the sharp points of a traditional grommet hole system, the frame seats it on “Round Archways,” keeping frame and string in closer contact, and seven days after stringing the stringbed still gave constant high resiliency. On the 20 Muscle, Yonex Japan’s one-line pitch was less tension loss and more repulsion, and its product page promised the solid, responsive feel advanced players like and steep-angled smashes. The frame was high-modulus carbon and the shaft all-carbon, where the plain Carbonex 20 of the period was listed as all-carbon throughout.
No player on record
No player is documented on the Carbonex 20 Muscle. Yonex Japan’s advisory-staff pages of 2003–05 list its top players on the Muscle Power 90 and 80, the Armortec 700 and 800, the Nanospeed 8000 and the Ti-10, never on the 20 Muscle, and Yonex’s Yonex Open Japan 2004 player reports do not name it either.
One finish, and the other Muscle Carbonex models
Yonex Japan sold the 20 Muscle in one color, peacock blue (167), at ¥18,000 before tax with a soft case, in 3U and 2U, each in grips 4 and 5. It recommended 17–20 lb mains and 19–22 lb crosses for the 3U and 1 lb more for the 2U; its 2005 page gave ranges of 17–22 lb and 18–23 lb, added a built-in T-joint to the materials and stated made in Japan. Yonex USA rated it stiff, in 3U (85–89 g) and 2U (90–94 g) with a G4 grip. It was not the only Carbonex with the muscle frame. In Yonex Japan’s April 2004 lineup the Carbonex section ran: the new Carbonex 30 Muscle, with Ultimum Ti in frame and shaft; the 20 Muscle; the Carbonex 23, “the Carbonex for intermediate and advanced players with the Muscle Power Frame”; the plain Carbonex 20; and the Carbonex 13. Yonex’s export list of 2006 carried a Carbonex-10MS as well, with the printed specification of the 2000 catalog’s Carbonex 10 Tour; both have their own pages. The “Carbonex 35 Muscle” of a 2010 US retail listing is the plain Carbonex 35, as that model’s page explains.
Three years on sale
The 20 Muscle joined Yonex Japan’s lineup in April 2002, when the Carbonex 20 Long, a black high-modulus frame, left it; Yonex filed the Long among its 2001 old models; it has its own page. Yonex’s US site listed the Carbonex-20 Muscle by August 2002, beside the Carbonex-23 and Carbonex-8200 Light (which has its own page), and by mid-2004 it was the only racquet on that Carbonex page; by October 2005 the page listed the Carbonex 30MS, 8400 and 21 instead; the 8400 has its own page. Yonex Japan’s product page was still online in October 2005, and Yonex Japan lists the 20 Muscle among the models whose production ended in 2005, with the Ti 6, 4 and 2 and the Isometric Ti Swing Power. The verified sales shown above are pre-owned frames from Asia resale.
Copies and identity
No counterfeit of the Carbonex 20 Muscle is documented. The practical risk is confusing it with its namesake: the plain Carbonex 20 ran far longer and in several finishes, and Japanese listings tell the two apart by the full name. The printed MUSCLE, the raised archways at the grommets and the peacock blue finish are what separate the 20 Muscle from the ordinary Carbonex 20.
A short branch of a long line
Yonex named no successor to the 20 Muscle. The muscle frame stayed in the Carbonex line through the Carbonex 30 Muscle, which has its own page; Yonex Japan sold it from September 2003 until its production ended in 2011, and by June 2006 Yonex Japan’s Carbonex section had shrunk to the 30 Muscle, 23, 20 and 13. The plain Carbonex 20, which has its own page, outlasted the 20 Muscle. The 20 Muscle remains a three-year side branch of that name, the version Yonex fitted with its Muscle Power Frame.
Read the model name: Carbonex 20 Muscle, Yonex item CAB20MS, with the raised Muscle Power Frame between the grommets. Yonex Japan listed one finish, peacock blue (color 167), a high-modulus carbon frame, an all-carbon shaft and a built-in T-joint, in 3U or 2U, grips 4 or 5, made in Japan; Yonex USA rated it stiff. The plain Carbonex 20 was listed without the muscle frame (violet in 2001–04, later neon orange), the Carbonex 20 Long was black, and the Carbonex 30 Muscle has Ultimum Ti in frame and shaft. Yonex printed no balance for it. On a frame twenty years old, check the head, grommet ridges and joint for cracks.
The 20 Muscle is a short chapter in the Carbonex 20’s long run: the same name with Yonex’s Muscle Power Frame, sold for about three years. No player or edition story attaches to it, so what matters is what can be checked: the printed name, the peacock blue finish, the weight class and the condition of an old frame. Be careful with listings that say only “Carbonex 20”.
Verified prices last updated Aug 2026. All data based on tracked secondary market transactions.