Relationships Between Trunk Kinematics at the Critical Time Points in Baseball Pitching

Baseball pitching is one of the most dynamic movements performed in sports. The high complexity of the movement poses a challenge when learning or instructing pitching technique. While there are many technical points to attend to during pitching, it is theorized that there is a limit in the attentional resources that can be used to carry out a task, and thus the number of cues to use when learning or instructing a pitching technique must be limited. [1]

Since pitching is a movement that involves sequential action of body segments, kinematics in the early preparatory phases are likely linked to kinematics in the latter dynamic phases. Understanding the relationship between kinematics at various time points during pitching would help reduce the number of cues to use in coaching, which may lead to effective instruction.

While pitching involves the interaction of multiple segments, trunk kinematics is central to pitching movement, as the trunk is a critical link between the lower and upper extremities. [2,3] Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between trunk forward flexion, lateral flexion, and rotation angles at stride foot contact (SFC), maximal shoulder external rotation (MER), and ball release (REL).