Comparing Balance and Power to Baseball Throwing Velocity in Collegiate Baseball Pitchers

Abstract

In baseball, one game or a season can depend greatly on the pitcher’s performance. A pitcher’s success can be greatly affected by velocity and their ability to maintain that velocity throughout the game. A better understanding of what physical attributes and training protocols affect a pitcher’s velocity would be helpful in designing training programs. PURPOSE: To examine variables that may potentially impact baseball throwing velocity (BTV). METHODS: 12 Division I collegiate baseball pitchers (height=186.7±9.3 cm, weight=91.2±12.4 kg and age=20.5±2.3 years) underwent assessments for upper and lower body power and balance. Lower body power data was collected using the vertical jump test VERTEC (Jump USA, Sunnyvale, CA), and an incline 4.5 kg medicine ball chest press to measure upper body power. Balance was assessed using the BIODEX Balance System SD (Biodex, Inc, Shirley, NY) and measured in the one legged follow through position of the pitch. BTV was collected while pitcher’s participated in actual games, off speed pitches were not used in this analysis and the number and type of pitches thrown varied depending upon the circumstance of the game, BTV was recorded using a Stockersport II (Applied Concepts INC, Plano TX) radar gun. RESULTS: Overall power output was highly correlated to BTV (r2=0.51, p=.006) with the majority of that correlation coming from lower body power (r2=0.47, p=.01) and upper body (r2=0.33, p=.039). Body weight also correlated with BTV (r2=0.74, p=.001), neither height (r2=0.16, p=.167) or balance (r2=0.07, p=.365), anterior/posterior (r2=0.087, p=.33), and medial/lateral (r2=0.11, p=.208) correlated with BTV. Game BTV was significantly decreased when comparing innings 1-3 to innings 4-6 respectfully (x=88.06 mph, x=86.57 mph; p=.039). CONCLUSIONS: There is a strong correlation between power and BTV, more specifically lower body power. With no correlation between height and balance with BTV, but a strong correlation with weight. In addition, fatigue appears to negatively impact BTV. Based on these findings it appears that baseball pitchers may benefit from a conditioning program focused on lower body power to increase the velocity of their pitches. Future investigations could help establish if this type of training could also reduce the impact of fatigue on BTV in the later innings of a game.