Performance Enhancement Among Adolescent Players After 10 weeks of Pitching Training With Appropriate Baseball Weights

Abstract

Compared with regulation-weight baseballs, lightweight baseballs generate lower torque on the shoulder and elbow joints without altering the pitching movement and timing. This study investigates the throwing accuracy, throwing velocity, arm swing velocity, and maximum shoulder external rotation (MSER) of adolescent players after 10 weeks of pitching training with appropriate lightweight baseballs. We assigned 24 adolescent players to a lightweight baseball group (group L) and a regulation-weight baseball group (group R) based on their pretraining throwing velocity. Both groups received pitching training 3 times per week for 10 weeks with 4.4- and 5-oz baseballs. The players' throwing accuracy, throwing velocity, arm swing velocity, and MSER were measured from 10 maximum efforts throws using a regulation-weight baseball before and after undergoing the pitching training. The results showed that the players in group L significantly increased their throwing velocity and arm swing velocity (p < 0.05) after 10 weeks of pitching training with the 4.4-oz baseball, whereas group R did not (p > 0.05). Furthermore, the percentage change in the throwing velocity and arm swing velocity of group L was significantly superior to that of group R (p < 0.05). Thus, we concluded that the 10 weeks of pitching training with an appropriate lightweight baseball substantially enhanced the arm swing velocity and throwing velocity of the adolescent baseball players. These findings suggest that using a lightweight baseball, which can reduce the risk of injury without altering pitching patterns, has positive training effects on players in the rapid physical growth and technique development stage.

Higher Precision in Pointing Movements of the Preferred vs. Non-Preferred Hand Is Associated with an Earlier Occurrence of Anticipatory Postural Adjustments

“…It has been also recently demonstrated that training induce improvement in the correct tailoring of the APA chain with respect to the prime mover recruitment, both in young adults (Kanekar and Aruin, 2015 ) and elderly (Kubicki et al, 2012 ; Aruin et al, 2015 ). Thus, the increased precision of voluntary movement observed after training (Hamman et al, 1995 ; Yang et al, 2013 ) might be partly due to a more appropriate tuning of APAs on the prime mover recruitment. The linkage between APAs and movement precision was also suggested for intra-limb APAs by Caronni and Cavallari ( 2009 ).…”

The Organization and Control of Intra-Limb Anticipatory Postural Adjustments and Their Role in Movement Performance

“…The linkage between APAs and movement precision is also supported by the observation that training induces improvement in the correct tailoring of the APA chain with respect to the prime mover recruitment, both in young adults (Kanekar and Aruin, 2015 ) and elderly (Kubicki et al, 2012 ; Aruin et al, 2015 ). Thus, the increased movement precision observed after training (Hamman et al, 1995 ; Yang et al, 2013 ) might be partly due to a more appropriate tuning of the postural adjustments. Other suggestions about the linkage between APAs and precision derive from some motor behaviors in which proper whole-body stabilization is needed to achieve an effective performance.…”

Effects of weighted baseball throwing during warm-up on ball velocity and upper extremity muscle activation in baseball pitchers

“…In a baseball game, pitchers play a key role in determining the outcome of the game, while the velocity and accuracy of pitches thrown by the pitchers are considered to be very important factors ( Yang et al, 2013 ). The ability to throw a ball at a high velocity requires a strong upper extremity muscle and a high power to generate maximum muscle strength within a short timeframe during the pitching motion ( Potteiger et al, 1989 ).…”