Kinematics and Kinetics of Youth Baseball Catchers and Pitchers

Gretchen Oliver,Sarah Gascon,Keith Lohse

doi:10.3390/sports3030246

Gretchen Oliver, Sarah Gascon + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/sports3030246

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Journal: Sports	Publication Date: Sep 1, 2015
Citations: 2	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Auburn University

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the throwing kinematics and kinetics of youth catchers and pitchers. It was hypothesized that catchers and pitchers would exhibit differences throughout the throwing motion. Descriptive statistics were used to investigate kinematics during the four events of throwing: foot contact (FC), maximum shoulder external rotation (MER), ball release (BR) and maximum shoulder internal rotation (MIR). Additionally, kinetics were investigated within phases of the events: Phase 1 (cocking; FC to MER), Phase 2 (acceleration; MER to BR) and Phase 3 (deceleration; BR to MIR). Results revealed significant difference in torso flexion, lateral flexion, pelvis lateral flexion and segment velocities between the catchers and pitchers. Based on data from the current study, it appears that the youth catchers execute their throw as they have been instructed. It is unclear if the throwing mechanics displayed by these youth are efficient for a catcher, thus further investigation is needed to determine long-term injury susceptibility.

Highlights

Biomechanical analysis of youth throwing continues to evolve and has taken on a new resurgence with the focus on injury prevention
Results revealed a significant difference between catchers and pitchers averaging across the different events/phases for: torso flexion, torso lateral flexion, pelvic lateral flexion and segment velocity (Figures 1–4, respectively)
The greatest difference in pelvis lateral flexion occurred at foot contact (FC), and the motion progressed to maximum shoulder external rotation (MER), ball release (BR) and maximum shoulder internal rotation (MIR); their torso flexion continued to increase

Summary

Introduction

Biomechanical analysis of youth throwing continues to evolve and has taken on a new resurgence with the focus on injury prevention. A majority of the available data dedicated to biomechanics of throwing has focused on youth pitchers [1,2,3,4]. There is another position that requires more throws than the pitcher, the catcher [5]. The catcher throws the ball back to the pitcher after every non-hit pitch, but may throw to any of the three bases as required by a variety of circumstances. Though a majority of the catcher’s throws may be submaximal, the throws to hold a runner on base are maximum effort

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