Upper body contributions to pitched ball velocity in elite high school pitchers using an induced velocity analysis.

Interest in joint and segment contributions to pitched ball velocity has been dominated by inverse dynamic solutions, which is limited in ascertaining complex muscle/joint interactions. Our purpose was to use induced velocity analysis to investigate which joint(s) made the largest contribution to the velocity of a pitched ball. Pitching data were collected from six elite high school-aged pitchers with no history of arm injury.

Computing muscle, ligament, and osseous contributions to the elbow varus moment during baseball pitching.

Baseball pitching imposes a dangerous valgus load on the elbow that puts the joint at severe risk for injury. The goal of this study was to develop a musculoskeletal modeling approach to enable evaluation of muscle-tendon contributions to mitigating elbow injury risk in pitching. We implemented a forward dynamic simulation framework that used a scaled biomechanical model to reproduce a pitching motion recorded from a high school pitcher.