Kinematics of Softball Hitting Off of a Tee versus Front Toss

Abstract

Hitting a baseball or softball is one of the most difficult skills in sport. Use of a batting tee as a training technique is viewed as principle for establishing and improving basic fundamentals of hitting. PURPOSE: To determine lower extremity (knee flexion, pelvis rotation) and trunk (flexion, lateral flexion and rotation) kinematics hitting off a tee and hitting front toss. It was hypothesized that there would be no difference in lower extremity and trunk kinematics between the two conditions. METHODS: Nineteen National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate softball players (20.51±1.53 yrs; 68.99±7.68 kg; 166.87±6.00 cm) participated. Participants were instructed to execute five maximal effort swings hitting from a tee and five maximal effort swings hitting front toss from a pitcher at 9.14 m (30 ft). The hitting motion was divided into five events: stance (ST), load (LD), foot contact (FC), ball contact (BC), and follow-through (FT). RESULTS: Data failed the test of normality; therefore, a Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to determine if there were median differences in hitting kinematics between two hitting conditions during each hitting event. Results revealed kinematic differences in trunk flexion at load (z = -2.55, p = 0.01). No other significant results were found between hitting events and examined variables during each condition. CONCLUSION: Though there were minimal kinematic differences in the two hitting conditions, these differences were at swing initiation and not exhibited beyond ball contact. These findings are beneficial for this population as decreased variability in swing mechanics across various conditions is desired. Therefore, it is suggested that future research continue to examine hitting mechanics from not only a kinematic approach but also from a kinetic and performance approach.