| It is a commonly held perception amongst biomechanists, sports
medicine practitioners, baseball coaches and players, that an individual
baseball player's style of throwing or pitching influences their performance
and susceptibility to injury. With the results of a series of focus
groups with baseball managers and pitching coaches in mind, the available
scientific literature was reviewed regarding the contribution of individual
aspects of pitching and throwing mechanics to potential for injury
and performance. After a discussion of the limitations of kinematic
and kinetic analyses, the individual aspects of pitching mechanics
are discussed under arbitrary headings: Foot position at stride foot
contact; Elbow flexion; Arm rotation; Arm horizontal abduction; Arm
abduction; Lead knee position; Pelvic orientation; Deceleration-phase
related issues; Curveballs; and Teaching throwing mechanics. In general,
popular opinion of baseball coaching staff was found to be largely
in concordance with the scientific investigations of biomechanists
with several notable exceptions. Some difficulties are identified
with the practical implementation of analyzing throwing mechanics
in the field by pitching coaches, and with some unquantified aspects
of scientific analyses.
KEY
WORDS: Baseball, pitching, throwing, injury, analysis, biomechanics.
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