Biomechanical factor affecting Baseball Pitching Velocity
In baseball, pitchers have a central role and high-speed pitching is desirable. So far, several studies of the physical factors related to pitching form with the aim of improving the speed of pitched balls have been conducted. In this study, we used a motion capture to acquire three-dimensional (3D) time series data related to the speed of pitched balls and performed a kinetics analysis by using these acquired data. The acquired data were divided into five pitching phases: wind up, early cocking, late cocking, acceleration, and follow through. Our analysis identified the body parts that contribute to increasing the speed of pitched balls, i.e., the speed of rotation of individual joints and the timing/phase when power can be applied. Especially, by examining joint angular velocity and joint force, we showed that the speed of pitched balls is determined by the action of the upper limbs as well as the coordinated action of the whole body, particularly the lower limbs and the trunk.