Establishing the Role of Elbow Muscles by Evaluating Muscle Activation and Co-contraction Levels at Maximal External Rotation in Fastball Pitching

Background: Baseball pitching is associated with a high prevalence of ulnar collateral ligament injuries, potentially due to the high external valgus load on the medial side of the elbow at the instant of maximal shoulder external rotation (MER). In-vitro studies show that external valgus torque is resisted by the ulnar collateral ligament but...

Are UCL Injuries a Matter of Bad Luck?: The Role of Variability and Fatigue Quantified

Upper extremity injuries are common in baseball. One of these is the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) injury. In the field of sports injuries, most research focuses on average kinematics and kinetics between subjects, whereas focusing on within-subject variability appears to be more relevant for determining injury risk. We constructed a simple...

Elite athlete motor and loading actions on the upper limb in baseball pitching

In baseball, pitchers are the players that are most prone to injury. Most injuries occur at the elbow and shoulder of the throwing upper limb. It is widely accepted that understanding the loading in the joints during pitching is a key factor to prevent injuries. To deepen the understanding of the joint actions this study proposes to split the...

Shoulder joint velocity during fastball pitching in baseball

The purpose of this study was to assess the rotation and translation velocity of the shoulder complex during fastball pitching in baseball. 8 pitchers from the Dutch AAA team performed each 3 fastball pitches. Their motion was recorded by an opto-electronic device. Kinematic computation was performed using the quaternion algebra. The results...