Abstract
Baseball pitchers commonly suffer shoulder and elbow injuries. Previous research
on the relationship between pitch velocity and upper extremity kinetics has been
limited to laboratory settings, but recent strides in markerless motion capture
have allowed analysis of in-game baseball pitching biomechanics. Therefore, our
purpose was to provide normative data of in-game pitching kinetics and assess
the relationships between pitch velocity and shoulder and elbow kinetics. Data
from 183 college pitchers were included in this retrospective analysis of
in-game college baseball games. Multilevel models were used to assess the
relationships between pitch velocity and kinetics. Intraclass correlation
coefficients were used to assess the intrapitcher relationship between kinetics
across multiple outings. The inclusion of random slopes did not meaningfully
reduce intrapitcher throwing arm kinetic variance. Additionally, the
intrapitcher relationship between throwing arm kinetics and ball velocity did
not remain constant across multiple outings. Pitch velocity and in-game throwing
arm kinetics did not have a strong intrapitcher relationship, which is different
than the results of previous laboratory analyses. The intrapitcher relationship
between fastball velocity and throwing arm kinetics does not remain consistent
across multiple outings. Additionally, this study provides normative in-game
kinetic data for baseball pitching.
Keywords
Biomechanics - Injury - Markerless motion capture - Multi-level model
