The Analytics Age has come to baseball and it is not going away. While the price of very accurate tracking technology has come down and the ease of use has increased, coaches outside of the professional level still struggle with both the learning curve for new technology and the constraints placed upon them by budget and time.

Most coaches that reach out to us have (to borrow a phrase from Sam Walton) “too little time, too little money and two little kids.”

So layering in the expectation of learning new technology is not high on the priority list. But increasingly functional deployment of technology will be a requirement to win games at the amateur level.

It’s the responsibility of both Driveline Baseball, as proponents of using data to make player development decisions, and technology makers, as sellers of products to coaches, to keep those limitations in mind and design around them…not shame hard-working coaches because they aren’t “cutting edge”.

What’s Reasonable – A Test for Tracking Technology Decisions

It’s not reasonable to expect the pitching coach at a D3 school who teaches middle school to make ends meet is going to be the foremost expert on ball flight physics.

However, it is reasonable to expect that coach to be committed to helping find and develop the best players. Increasingly, part of that job is using technology to augment your coaching abilities.

The goal for a small school should be to get the absolute most out of the technology they have available. If you feel confident you are doing that, then it’s the time to layer on new technology.

Key Component: A Data Collection (and Review) Process

The key to using any type of technology (barbells, Rapsodo, Motus, whatever) is to have a process for recording and reviewing the data.

The good news is that you already do this in an informal way. Checking in with the guys during stretch, logging weight room work, charting bullpens, this is all data collection.

While the process we use internally has significantly more bells and whistles on the technology front, the basics of the process are replicable from Little League to the big leagues.

1. Initial Baseline. You need to know where your athletes are at. How complex and detailed this is depends on what tools you have. However, you can’t create a training plan in a vacuum so having some semblance of who you are dealing with is critical. Here is what to look for at a high level:
   1. Pitchers: velocity, control, strength/power, mobility/joint stability.
   2. Hitters: exit velocity, ability to hit off-speed, strength/power, mobility/joint stability.
2. Training Intervention. Intervention is a scary word but it’s anything you do to make a guy better: weight room, team practice, rest. I’d block out 4-8 weeks to make sure the intervention is having an effect.
3. Retest. Is the training working? Let’s go find out. If you put an athlete on a strength-focus, did their strength improve? Any carry-over to their pitching velocity or in-game power?

Getting the Most Out of Small Budgets

The key to managing a data-driven development program is simply setting up tracking, review and retest protocols for any technology you deploy.

Below are tiers of technology that you can deploy for no, low, and medium cost.

By way of example, a simple protocol for testing throwing velocity is measuring mound velocity or long toss distance and then retesting each month or two. Alternatively, having athletes fill out a short questionnaire before practice measuring well-being can be easily aggregated inside a Google Form or something similar.

Simple protocols work best for all of the Tier 1 groupings.

Tier 1 – Readily Available, Mostly Free

Schools should look to get the most out of these resources first. This is the lowest-hanging fruit and you can significantly improve on-field performance at basically no cost.

• Barbells – available for free in most school weight rooms.
• Bats and Baseballs – a sunk cost for most baseball programs.
• Athletic Trainers – if available at your school, they are typically part of the overall budget.
• Athlete Well-Being – you already ask guys how they are doing, write it down.

Tier 2 – Small to Medium Investment

These can be applied in stages, one per year. Or, with a dialed in process for collecting data, you can do a big fundraiser to scrape together the $10,000-$15,000 it will take to purchase this all at once.

• Rapsodo Pitching – a complete tool for pitch analysis at scale for teams.
• Batted Ball Flight Trackers – Hittrax and Rapsodo are probably the leaders here. There are others at different price points.
• Motus – workload management for pitchers.
• Barbell Speed Trackers – tracking barbell speed gives you the opportunity to get better insights into force and power.
• High-Speed Cameras – high-speed video allows you to marry “feel” data from players to “truth” data from Rapsodo.
  • Edgertronic – the top-of-the-line. Gives you ball flight, finger pressure and spin stabilization.
  • Sony A1000 – the best mid-tier option. Less resolution on fine details but you can roughly see grip.
  • iPhone slo-mo – mileage may vary.

Tier 3 – Only if donated

This includes a ton of big-ticket items like installed motion-capture systems and the like that are just not in the price range for small schools. No matter the data quality or granularity they aren’t likely to happen for you unless an athlete’s mom runs a hedge fund.

Unexplored Opportunities – Clubs on Campus

Tracking all of this data takes time.

And time is limited–both explicitly by the NCAA and by the sheer volume of tasks most coaches have to take on just to keep programs afloat and at-budget.

However, there are 2-3 students at your school right now who are:

1. Analytically-minded
2. Willing to work for free
3. Love baseball

Those students can all be found in your school’s computer science/math/economics clubs.

There is actually a much bigger opportunity that small schools have that they don’t often take advantage of.

Inside of the analytics community, most of the publicly available datasets have been strip-mined. There just aren’t many more insights to be gleaned from the 2014-2016 PitchF/X database about how to value pitchers.

However, player development analytics is basically wide open. The catch is that no MLB team is going to make sensitive player data available to the public. So the talented analytics people, those who aspire to the MLB analytics jobs of the future, don’t have a lot to work with.

But you can give them that opportunity. And, to a smart computer science kid, a well-analyzed couple of seasons of player data, even from a smaller school, is worth a lot to burnish their portfolio for MLB internships.

And the insights will help you win games. It’s a win-win that is very much underutilized.

The investment of a couple of hours emailing clubs and giving short presentations at club meetings could yield 1-4 years of quality analytics work at the cost of a couple of team shirts and a weekly meeting.

The post Data-Driven on a Budget: Baseball Analytics for High Schools and Colleges appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

When approaching rehabilitation cases for pitchers who have had ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction (UCLr, or “Tommy John surgery”), the traditional model looks something like this:

• Surgery occurs and the arm is placed in a locked brace that limits flexion/extension at the elbow
• The patient is given a stretching/mobility program and ordered to gain full flexion and full extension before doing strengthening exercises (this can vary depending on the surgeon and physical therapist, but is largely similar across the board)
• The patient begins a “throwing” program

The throwing programs prescribed for post-UCLr are often called “interval throwing programs,” and this is an example of such a program from a prominent doctor:

Interval Throwing Program

It’s our opinion at Driveline Baseball that this type of program has two major flaws:

1. It is excessively aggressive, especially when it comes to volume
2. It lacks monitoring of any kind outside of distance

Your first day throwing on this program involves two sets of “warm-up throws” and 50 total throws from 45 feet. If you split the difference on the warm-up throws and call it 15 throws each (10-20 per the document), then you are making 80 total throws on your first post-surgery throwing day!

Not surprisingly, the most common side effect of these types of programs involves debilitating soreness and setbacks due to inability to overcome the volume of the program, which delays the rehabilitation clock.

Secondly, there is no monitoring outside of distance. Pitchers going out to 180 feet on this program do so at varying angles, velocities, intent, and rest periods between their throws. This program cannot be equally effective for the MLB pitcher who sits 95 MPH in games and the 17 year old who sits 83 MPH. Either the MLB pitcher is being overtrained or the high school pitcher is being undertrained – it’s not possible that neither is happening.

Instead, we propose a different method of rehabilitation. While we very much agree with the basic steps of a hard brace, regaining flexion/extension at the elbow, and then doing strengthening exercises at the forearm and shoulder before progressing into a throwing program, how we do throwing looks a lot different.

And since it never fails that we get ridiculous comments every single time we post a video of high-intensity throwing, like this one of Kyle Zimmer as part of his rehabilitation:

I guess this article is needed!

Our article detailing “pulldown” throws goes into a bit of detail, but I’d like to expand specifically on high-intensity throwing and why we do it with our rehab cases.

A Different Timeline for Rehabilitation

The Driveline Baseball Biomechanics Lab

We’ve recently been tasked with the rehabilitation of various high-level pitchers, both amateur and professional. In all cases, we have a standardized approach but an individualized method. What does that mean? Let’s take a look at the standardized model, and then we’ll look into how it can adapt and deviate for an individual.

The Standardized Driveline Rehabilitation Approach

How we go about rehabilitation is fairly standard, but takes many branches once we collect data. The general model looks something like this:

• Pitcher has surgery, regains full flexion/extension, does strengthening exercises for forearm/shoulder, and is cleared for throwing
• During the flexion/extension and strengthening phases, our High Performance team and Physical Therapist meet with the client to perform a full assessment, and training economy is directed at regaining hip/shoulder mobility and stability through manual therapy, mobility drilling, and strength exercises. Lower body power is highly prioritized during this phase as well, with adaptive exercises programmed so no load will happen on the shoulder or elbow.
• Cleared to Throw: Start overload, low-velocity PlyoCare force acceptance program with extensive manual therapy at shoulder. Examples include Reverse Throws, plyometric “rebounder” throws, wrist weight work, and Upward Tosses. High Performance team begins attacking the elbow via strengthening exercises and assisted manual therapy as volume goes up and eccentric training is added.
• Force Acceptance Complete: Once the force acceptance period is nearing completion, low-velocity, overloaded PlyoCare forward throws can begin – examples include the Pivot Pickoff Throw and Roll-In Throw with blue PlyoCare balls. This helps to build dynamic range of motion in a low-velocity manner with little acceleration at the joints, which keeps peak stresses down but total stress up. The body adapts significantly better to chronic stress in a repeatable kinematic model, so patterning and verbal cuing is at its highest in this phase not only to protect the arm, but to effect positive mechanical changes.

Blue PlyoCare Ball

• Overload, Low-Velocity Program Complete: When the low-velocity, overloaded forward throw program is complete, postural circuit throwing generally begins, as well as baseball throwing. Note that we complete two full phases of throwing before ever picking up a baseball in our rehabilitation program. We’ll begin yellow, red, and blue PlyoCare circuit throws, examples being the Rocker Drill and Walking Windups. We’ll also play catch with overloaded baseballs like the 6, 7, and 9 oz. weighted balls at low-intensity. In all cases, we are monitoring the velocity of the throws and keeping it below a certain standard for each day to ensure we are layering stress appropriately, slowly, and in tune with the athlete’s recovery and soreness levels. In many cases, we will use the Motus mTHROW sleeve to measure dynamic range of motion at the arm, valgus stress, and arm slot changes to ensure we are on a good kinematic path to recovery. This is our “interval throwing program.”
• Interval Throwing Program Complete: With the interval throwing program complete, we will now start some basic mound work to prepare the athlete, and then have them throw at 80-90% rate of perceived exertion (RPE) off our mound with reflective markers on to capture biomechanics (kinematics and kinetics) of the athlete. From this data, we can capture angular velocities and positions that are critical for future training insights – from what we should do in the weight room, to what our physical therapists and manual therapists do, to how our Throwing Trainers prescribe reps/sets and workloads for our athlete.
• Biomechanics Captured, Return to High-Intensity Throwing: With biomechanics captured and all of our trainers, therapists, and coaches signing off on the athlete returning to high-intensity throwing, we will begin that phase of our program. Most programs at this time will tell the athlete to get on the mound and start pitching, but we hold them back – we think putting an athlete on the mound who has not yet fully cut a ball loose at 100% RPE is a major mistake, and often leads to mechanical flaws and setbacks in their program. This is when we will program the famous “running throws” and get supramaximal intent from our athletes, almost always wearing a Motus mTHROW sleeve to calculate chronic and acute workloads and ensure we are not overloading our athlete. After the athlete can throw well above their pitching velocity, we will then put them on the mound, where they will both be supremely physically prepared, but also extremely psychologically confident given how their intensity has gone stepping up to this part of their rehab.

• Customized: Beyond this, rehabilitation becomes highly personalized, but at all times we are monitoring the athlete via full body biomechanics periodically, radar gun velocities daily, and Motus mTHROW sleeve readings on high-intensity or high-volume days.

The Individualized Method

So now we’ve talked about the standard model for rehabilitation – which is anything but standard in the current baseball community – but inside that model, a ton of flexibility and individuality was noted. Let’s go into a few specific situations where the rehab will change based on certain pathologies or setbacks the athlete is facing.

Body is a Mess: Additional Manual Therapy Required

Dr. Curt Rindal

We’ve had athletes in here who look like they’ve been in a car crash. In those cases, our Physical Therapist and Manual Therapists will red flag them for serious deficiencies, note it in Driveline TRAQ, and ensure that our High Performance and Throwing Trainers are all on the same page: We need to halt this athlete’s throwing program until we can resolve the issues at hand.

Some common problems we’ve seen that cause halting a program:

• Serious asymmetrical hip deficiencies
• Large lack of isometric power in internal or external rotation at the shoulder
• Very poor shoulder flexion

Body is Extremely Weak: Needs to Be Put on a Strength-Focused Program

This happens unfortunately far too often in our athletic population, which points to poor coaching in their past. Strength is vitally important for performance on the diamond, but it’s significantly more important when it comes to rehabilitation and recovery from injury! Think about it: Postural control is all about kinesthetic awareness of where your body is, the mobility/stability to get into and out of positions, and the dynamic strength to maintain those positions. If you’re lacking one-third of the equation (and if you lack strength, you usually lack mobility/stability, making it worse), then you’re asking for future injuries to occur or setbacks at the very least.

If an athlete cannot meet standards for vertical power production, it’s an automatic red flag from our High Performance team in Driveline TRAQ. Without the ability to dynamically stabilize the lead leg in the throwing motion, mechanics immediately break down and compensatory movement is found elsewhere. In a high-effort mound or running throw, the lead leg is blocking a significant multiple of the athlete’s body weight, so if the athlete can’t front squat 135 for a set of three in a controlled manner or explosively generate force in a trap-bar deadlift jump, then there’s basically no shot it’s going to happen in a more athletic, less controlled, more sport-specific environment.

In this case, the athlete will spend more of their training economy in the weight room, 4-5 times per week, and less of it throwing. They’ll also work closely with manual therapists and our coaches to ensure no mobility deficits crop up as a result of additional weight training added to their program.

Arm is Extremely Fast-Twitch: Volume Needs to Go Down

This is the opposite of a fast-twitch arm.

While Trevor Bauer isn’t the best example of a fast-twitch arm – quite the opposite, actually – most of our professional pitchers have high arm speed in their biomechanical assessments. This makes sense; many pro pitchers were born with genetic gifts that gave them a leg up in baseball. However, this trait, if not properly controlled for, causes a lot of problems in the rehabilitation settings. It’s also the reason for the original interval throwing program you see in the beginning of this post – medical experts for decades just defaulted on keeping intensity down to try and control for overtraining their athletes. Unfortunately, if there’s one thing you can bank on when it comes to professional pitchers in rehab, it’s the fact they don’t listen to people telling them to take it easy, especially with undefined metrics and no monitoring.

So, we’ve got an athlete who has very fast angular velocities and accelerations at the shoulder and elbow, which are predictors of high valgus stress at the elbow and distraction forces at the shoulder. What do we do? We first make sure we track their throwing in Driveline TRAQ using a Motus mTHROW sleeve; this becomes their new security blanket that they wear in addition to throwing at a radar gun at all times. Since we know the body reacts to chronic, readily-stepped stress better than it does sharp peaks and valleys in training stress, we need to keep the volume down as the intensity goes up for these fast-twitch athletes. In rehab, we may increase the number of days they throw, but reduce the number of total throws for that given day. We may also cut down on underload throwing and weighted baseball training in general, or program more low-velocity throws with heavier balls to try and keep peak stress down.

An MLB team trainer of 25+ years once told me:

I see athletes making the same mistake over and over again – they think long toss, flat grounds, and weighted baseball training is all ‘free’ training economy, and then they throw their bullpens at 60% effort. The only time they cut it loose are on game days, which is highly inappropriate. There is no specificity to their training between start days!

Since I couldn’t put it better myself, I figured I’d just quote him and let him figuratively drop the mic.

Wrapping it Up: Rehab Needs to Change

If all you got from this post is that high-intensity throwing has a place in the rehab setting, then great, that’s good enough!

What we want to reinforce is that baseball rehabilitation desperately needs two things that it doesn’t currently have, which are:

1. Improved monitoring of arm/body mechanics and workload (kinematics, kinetics, chronic/acute stressors)
2. Better communication between skill-specific coaches (baseball) and medical professionals (Physical Therapists, Orthopedic Surgeons, Manual Therapists)

We’re attacking it via our integrated staff training methods, technology, and Driveline TRAQ – and results have never been better both on the performance AND rehab sides.

If you’re interested in rehabilitating at Driveline Baseball, drop us a line. And if you’re a coach who wants to learn more and plan a visit, do the same. We’d love to hear from you.

This article was written by Kyle Boddy, Founder of and Director of R&D for Driveline Baseball

The post High-Intensity Throwing and a New Method of Rehabilitating Baseball Pitchers appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

In 2017, we made many strides at Driveline Baseball in an effort to further our ability to help athletes develop. If you follow our social media, you’ve seen that one of those ways was through implementing structured pitch design sessions with the use of Rapsodo and Edgertronic cameras. The other, less glamorous, way has been to improve command through use of our weighted and command balls. Though not as talked about on social media, the differential command balls have helped athletes, both at Driveline and schools around the country, make significant strides.

In an effort to explain some of the science behind them and help provide a bit of guidance to those struggling with command, let’s break down the science behind our command balls and how we structure programming with them to obtain the best results.

Proprioception

When you first pick up a set of command balls, you’ll notice something is immediately different about them from standard baseballs: some are larger and some are smaller, 5% larger and smaller to be exact. Also, some weigh 4-oz, some weigh 6-oz. We refer to this size and weight difference as “differential command training.”

This chaos of change in size and weight immediately leads people to exclaim, “Ahh! Training proprioception!” And yes, that’s likely a major contributor of why this system helps improve command. After all, proprioception is the ability to unconsciously perceive movement and orientation from stimuli within the body, as it relates to motion, position, and equilibrium, and that’s exactly what we’re looking to have athletes feel. We want athletes to feel and make adjustments based off the different weights and sizes. In theory, this should help improve an athlete’s ability to be more aware of where and how the ball is being released.

Research supports this theory. There are several studies examining training proprioception and its effects on skill acquisition. One such study examined proprioception training through balance and its effects on soccer skills. The study showed a significant increase in several of the skills and noted the importance of having both diverse and complementary proprioception training programs (Bekris et. al. 2012).

The keyword in that statement is in the necessity for a diverse program. As baseball players, we’ve thrown 5-oz baseballs with a 9-9.25 inch diameter for our entire careers. There’s no diversity in the implement, so eventually our ability to improve that skill diminishes because our bodies have adapted to it. In order to further grow, we have to make changes, and one way to do this is through the use differential command balls to help provide a proprioceptive change.

Contextual Interference

Contextual interference (CI) is the second and far less understood piece regarding the benefits of differential command balls. CI is a motor-skill acquisition theory claiming that by randomizing the motor skills you are trying to teach, you improve skill retention and transfer.

For example, a study by Hall et. al. looked at the effects of CI with hitting. This study examined if a blocked, random, or control group would have better success improving an athlete’s ability to hit three different pitches solidly. The pitches were curveball, fastball, and change-up. The random group saw 15 of each pitch in a random sequence with no pitch being repeated more than twice in a row. The block group faced 15 of each pitch all in succession, and the control group received regular BP only. The results found an improved ability for the randomized group’s performance compared to the other two groups.

However, the randomized group initially performed worse than the blocked group. This is because the initial increase in randomization results in poorer performance early in training, which is potentially even worse than baseline performance with the understanding that over time the transfer and skill retention will actually be higher. This, however, brings up the importance of data tracking and monitoring skill increases over time, as it is possible to over randomize for an athlete’s skill level. If this occurs, the athlete will likely not be able to adapt to the stimulus.

How to Put it Together

Throwing the command balls is difficult, but it’s important to understand the challenge. We start by testing an athlete’s command with a 5-oz baseball to establish a baseline and then begin slowly randomizing the program to allow time for the athlete to adapt. We start with our 4 and 6 ounce weighted balls and then move onto the differential command balls.

We also require athletes to have a certain percentage of pitches thrown for strikes twice at each stage of the process before advancing in difficulty. Initially, we don’t even mix in the over- and undersize balls because most athletes haven’t ever tried throwing strikes with them. This on its own is a significant amount of randomization.

As athletes progress, we begin increasing the randomization or individualize the program based on what the athlete’s response to the training is. For example, if an athlete constantly misses arm side, the program can be tailored to correct for this by working through an oversized and overload focus. The inverse is true for an athlete who has a tendency to cut and pull the ball across the zone, missing low and gloveside. Regardless, when implementing the program, it’s important to keep it simple initially and then build as an athlete’s command percentage at each stage of the program meets the measured objectives.

This article was written by Lead of High Performance Sam Briend

Bibliography

Bekris, E., Kahrimanis, G., Anagnostakos, K., Ioannis, G., Christos, P., Sotiropoulos, A.(2012). Proprioception and balance training can improve amateur soccer players’ technical skills. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Evangelos_Bekris/publication/262117331_The_effect_of_a_balance_and_proprioception_training_program_on_amateur_basketball_players’_passing_skills/links/5645df0908aef646e6cd7804.pdf

Hall, K., Domingues, D., Cavazos, R. (1994). Contextual Interference Effects with Skilled Baseball Players. https://www.gwern.net/docs/spacedrepetition/1994-hall.pdf

The post The How and Why of Differential Command Balls appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

Throwing strikes is hard.  Previously, we’ve discussed the mechanical and kinesiological factors that go into both throwing strikes and command issues. There are certainly psychological factors to consider as well.

We speak about the importance of intent when discussing velocity, but it also has a very similar significance for command. Intent is a requirement to command the baseball, just like it is to throw hard. You don’t produce elite command by just throwing as hard as possible. Ideally, we try to throw as hard as possible to a intended location or target. Moving forward in this post, we will be speaking about intent as being interchangeable with effort. 

Command is a skill and should be trained as such. Continually yelling at a pitcher to “throw strikes,” or constantly forcing him to make conscious mechanical changes, is not an effective way to improve command. In many cases, the outcome of this will be the complete opposite.  We know this.

We will discuss how we train command and how it can be implemented into team practice in an upcoming post.  Before we get to that, and the use of weighted baseballs and differential command balls to help train command, let’s review the common trap athletes and coaches fall into regarding command improvements.

“Dialing It Back”

A major reason command is trained infrequently is that many coaches and athletes, particularly at the amateur level, believe command is increased by sacrificing intent (and in turn velocity).  

This is a common misstep as it pertains to human kinetics and motor control. Practically, it has negative implications during competition as well. As you can imagine, mechanical efficiency decreases, meaning proper kinematic sequencing is disrupted and velocity goes down.  In other words, it’s likely tougher to command the ball, but it is also being attempted at lower velocities. In the event that the pitcher does throw strikes—well, we know how that ends.

Coaches communicate this in some form or another and most of the time verbally in bullpens, flat work, and especially competition:

“Dial it back, just throw strikes!”

“Don’t overthrow.”

“Take a little off and throw strikes.”

“Just play catch.”

There are countless examples and, as is usually the case with non-specific verbal cueing, they are largely ineffective. Because of this, athletes often feel or are told that throwing strikes cannot be achieved at maximum or near maximum effort or velocity. Failure to comply or execute on this leads to writing off the issue as mental. It certainly could be, but it is likely a lack of skill development as command is not as simple as just choosing to throw strikes.

Even if the idea of “dialing back” or “throttling down” to throw more strikes is not introduced or endorsed by a coach, amateur pitchers adopt this philosophy often on their own. This is especially the case in times of adversity.

Amateurs vs. Professionals

This is not something we see as a major issue with professional pitchers. Here is a chart comprised of data pulled from the Statcast:

The chart shows the average fastball velocity for all fastball types (4-seam, 2-seam, sinker, and cutter) thrown by each pitcher in the 2017 season based on location.

In Zone = A Strike

Out of Zone = A Ball

Edges = Borderline Pitch

We should see some discrepancy here if we are to assume any type of trade-off exists. We don’t.  Yes, this is only a handful of professional players—a small sample. However, the data is there, and we have a previous post exploring this you can investigate.

Effective training programs improve proprioception and teach the athlete to throw with greater efficiency. This means that velocity and command will both improve rather than one cannibalizing the other. So what do motor learning, control, and human kinetics say about this?

A Closer Look

The idea that pitchers should decrease intent or effort in order to increase command is likely derived from the Speed Accuracy Trade-Off (SATO) as it pertains to motor learning and control.   In short, an individual will sacrifice speed for accuracy, or vice versa. This suggests that in order to increase command (accuracy), intent or effort (speed) must be sacrificed. Speed in such instances does not directly refer to pitch velocity; it actually refers to the speed at which the movement is performed. Intent and velocity can really be interchangeable for the purposes of this discussion as we know that one is required and precedes the other. It is safe to assume in most cases when someone lowers effort or intent, velocity will drop off as well.

Academically, SATO has been researched extensively but remains poorly understood when it comes to sport (ballistic, multi-joint movements that require force production), where both accuracy and speed are required. SATO’s applications to sport and the accompanying research has revealed that there are exceptions.  

More than anything, the goal and kind of task or movement is really what drives SATO’s impact. The actual effect is vastly different between throwing a baseball versus moving a mouse pad. One is a gross motor skill; the other can be categorized as a fine motor skill.

Work on the subject by the likes of R.A. Schmidt, author and co-author (newer additions) of Motor Learning and Performance, suggests that when both accuracy and speed are required within the same task, greater focus on speed is beneficial. This greater focus has a positive effect on movement, sequencing, consistency, and accuracy.

M.A. Urbin, David Stodden, Rhona Boros and David Shannon actually conducted a study called Examining Impulse Variability in Overarm Throwing that produced some interesting insight:

The purpose of this study was to examine variability in overarm throwing velocity and spatial output error at various percentages of maximum to test the prediction of an inverted-U function as predicted by impulse-variability theory and a speed-accuracy trade-off as predicted by Fitts’ Law.

The study went on to state the following in its discussion section:

Decreased variability in throwing velocity at higher percentages of force output demonstrated in this study suggests sacrificing speed for accuracy in ballistic skills may be detrimental for motor skill development, especially in early skill acquisition (Roberton, 1996). The lack of differences in the projectile’s spatial error over the spectrum of force output suggests that maximum projectile velocity should be promoted early in skill acquisition. In essence, if an individual exhibits less variability in force output at near-maximal levels of throwing velocity, practitioners can address preparatory limb configurations to alter spatial error of the projectile. Effecting change in the preparatory positioning of segments is arguably more accessible than manipulating the magnitude forces and torques and timing of segmental interactions that may be more variable at submaximal effort.

Plenty of other research in the field specifically looking at sport-related movements point to similar conclusions. Having athletes dial back intent and effort levels very likely leads to undesirable mechanical changes. Arm speeds decrease, but it’s very difficult for the other moving parts within the delivery to do the same. Kinematic sequencing is thrown off, which certainly will have a negative impact on command.

The answer is not dropping effort or intent. Rather than preaching this, we should be communicating to athletes to treat command as a skill and learn to command the ball at higher levels of intensities and high velocities.  Training methods to improve command should be designed with this in mind.

This article was written by Driveline Floor Trainer Bill Hezel

The post Command Training and a Closer Look at the Speed Accuracy Trade-Off appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

Last time, we discussed if sacrificing intent is beneficial for improving command. Research looking deeper into the Speed Accuracy Trade-Off and human movement reveal it is not.

We know proprioception plays one of the largest roles in throwing strikes and commanding the baseball. Improving proprioception helps pitchers decrease endpoint variability, develop a more consistent feel for their pitches, and gain a better sense of where the body and arm is as it moves through space.

Command is not trained specifically at most levels of the game. Many throwing programs and player development strategies do not address it. A lot of that is due to the simple fact that few specific training programs and methodologies exist to help optimize for command.

How We Can Train It

The foundation of command and the ability to throws strikes consistently is built around good movement quality, mechanical efficiency and strength. In other words, keeping your pitchers healthy and improving their movement quality will allow them to maximize efficiency, move optimally on the mound, and do so without pain or discomfort. A coach’s ability to check those boxes off first and continually address them is paramount.

When it comes to command training, specifically, we are looking at kinesthetic awareness and ways to create a better proprioceptive map. One of the best ways to do this is by using overload, underload, modified implements (wrist weights, plyocare balls, weighted baseballs, etc.), and differential learning methods.  

Unfortunately, elite levels of command do not come from simply throwing a seemingly endless amount of regulation baseballs. If this were true, well, no one would have command issues. Pitchers have been throwing 5-oz baseballs their entire playing careers.

Weighted implements are a great proprioceptive tool for both pitching and hitting. The different weights give athletes immediate feedback while they go through similar ballistic movements with new stimuli. This helps them make adjustments and ultimately improves “feel” as they are completing the sames tasks (throwing) with small variations.

This is actually not new. Examples exist in other sports, such as basketball players using a slightly bigger and/or heavier ball to improve shooting range and accuracy. A more recognizable example is from Daniel Coyle’s book “The Talent Code”, where he describes Brazilian soccer players using Futsal to develop. Futsal is similar to soccer except it’s played with less players, a smaller field, some rule changes, and a different ball. A official Futsal ball is slightly smaller in size, slightly heavier in weight, and has 30% less bounce. Coyle and others have proposed that this improves ball-handling skills at a much faster rate and explains why Brazilian players historically have a large range of ball-handling creativity.

Integrating Command Training Into Your Practice

For starters, if your pitchers are currently using overload and underload implements in practice, you’re on the right track. Using wrist weights and plyocare throwing within your practices and training accomplishes this. These training tools alone can help improve throwing mechanics and increase proprioception.

Another great way for you to incorporate the benefits of overload and underload training is to use weighted baseballs in long toss and catch play. Even something as simple as using them in catch play with a bit of focus and discipline helps contribute to the “feel” pitchers need.

Forcing athletes to make slight adjustments as they throw the different weights is extremely valuable when it comes to training consistent throwing accuracy.

Adam Ottavino is having an excellent year. @KelsWingert talks about Adam's weighted baseball command program he developed – alongside a cutter to add between his nasty FB/SL combo to keep hitters honest – at Driveline Baseball. #drivelinefamily #rockies pic.twitter.com/Z4ejGXEFlH

— Kyle Boddy (@drivelinebases) August 19, 2018

The primary way we train command on the mound with athletes is through the use of differential training. This is something you can easily integrate into your practice or training.

An easy way to introduce this to your staff (and a personal favorite) is to start simply by using a slightly overload and slightly underload ball. This involves throwing off the mound using a regulation baseball as well as a 4-oz (underload) and 6-oz (overload) ball.  

This is even more effective now that our weighted baseballs are leather. Pitchers can work off the mound or flat ground for this. Tracking balls and strikes helps give each pitcher feedback in the form of strike percentage that is easily digested.

Not that long ago, we introduced our new Differential Command Training Baseball Set. We talked about the theory behind the balls here.

With these, the size of the actual implement (ball) becomes an additional variable. This set comes with an in-house command program that is tiered and built specifically with the idea of being able to have it integrate nicely into bullpen and/or flatground work.

When training, command rate of perceived exertion (RPE) is important. We recommend that command work be performed at least at 70% RPE—preferably higher so that it has the greatest amount of training carryover. Intensity can certainly be progressed over time, which we will get into in a bit. Using a radar gun is an easy feedback mechanism to assist with this.

One thing I’ve noticed when implementing command training with amateur athletes is that it requires supervision to insure effort levels are appropriate to induce a true training effect. A great way to solve this problem is to make these sessions competitive.  

“How do you do this?” You make it game.

If you have a solid culture already in place or are looking to build one, competition is likely the centerpiece. Gamifying can help insure RPE, focus, and effort when your players are performing their command work. Creating the game aspect is fairly easily with a little preparation and creativity.

Here is an example of a tracking sheet from a few years ago that allowed me to not only track strike percentage but also get some feedback regarding the misses themselves. This tracker gave insight to who actually threw the ball to the intended location as well as strike percentage. We also have the ability to track balls and strikes in command work in our training software TRAQ.

As you can see, pitchers ended each session with a command score. This solved the problem of effort and focus almost immediately when implemented. It then became part of what we tracked (along with pulldown velocity, mound velocity, body weight and bullpen velocity) during our blend-to-season phase of training.  

That’s not to say this is the only time it can be introduced. You can certainly add it to your fall training. You can also up the dosage for an individual who needs to be in a more command focused training program.  

This brings up a few great points:

• Command work is not only for athletes on your staff who don’t throw strikes. For many athletes, differential command work was a preferred alternative to short-box work.  
• This does not have to be fastball-only work. Pitchers can just as easily work on throwing secondary pitches in their sessions as well.
• You can also alter ball weights and sizes to make the sessions more individualized. Match up specific balls for certain guys who struggle consistently with the same pitch or location.

For all your pitchers, it’s important to progress them after getting a baseline. This will not only make it more challenging but also force them to adapt to new stimuli, more game-like scenarios and distractions. This is especially the case for guys that already throw a significant amount of strikes.

Here are a few examples, most of which I have used at the collegiate level with my staff:

• Progress the distance (50 feet to regulation distance)
• Go from flat ground to the mound
• Progress RPE (60-70% working up)
• Add a hitter (or two)
• Add a distraction (“hecklers”, unrelated task between throws, noise, etc.)

If you have our differential commands balls, you can use the program we provide and potentially combine it with some of the above.

For your athletes who already have a history of command issues, you may want to start them out in a position to succeed. For those individuals, I generally started them at lower RPE levels, at a closer distance, and progressed them from there. I also had success giving  them a visual aid of some sort. This can be done by using two catchers or setting up screens in each batter’s box to create a visual tunnel for the athlete.

Final Thoughts

It bares repeating, throwing strikes is hard. Coaching it is also hard. As we touched on in part one, we cannot expect a simple solution to such a complex issue. Training methodologies that increase proprioception and kinesthetic awareness should be pursued in order to train command. Hopefully this article has provided you with some ways to accomplish that.

This article was written by Driveline Trainer Bill Hezel

The post Implementing Command Training Into Team Practice appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

As more metrics become readily available for use in sport performance, we’ve seen baseball go through changes on and off the field, both strategically and developmentally. In Driveline’s never ending quest to optimize player development, one metric that we’ve started to investigate is brain activity measured through an electroencephalogram (EEG) device. While there are still some challenges with measuring neural biomarkers in movement science, measuring brain activity in sports is gaining traction as wearable EEG devices have become more practical for sports research. An article was recently published in Frontiers in Psychology stating the importance of understanding brain activity during sport performance:

Brain dynamics are at the basis of top performance accomplishment in sports – (Cheron et al., 2016)

Breaking down and understanding brain oscillations as biomarkers of performance in baseball has the potential to open another door for player development, adding an extra tool to the metrics and data already being used to validate and optimize player performance.

Quick EEG Review

EEG devices measure electrical activity at the level of the brain. They are able to detect large neuron firings within the cortex at lower frequencies. In sports research, we are mostly concerned with brain activity in the beta wave frequency (12.5-30 Hz). This wave frequency is a good indicator of alertness and conscious processing. It can also be used to indicate inefficient brain activity, as we saw in our previous post where novices actually had more beta wave brain activity in comparison to the experts who had more efficient brain activity. For the sake of this project, we intended to look at brain activity in the same range. For a more in-depth review, check out last year’s EEG Case Study.

Rationale

Noise

Neural noise refers to the random electrical fluctuations within neuronal networks. It has a significant effect on movement and sensorimotor control. When we collect data, whether from motion capture, EMG, EEG, or any other device, there is a “useful signal” related directly to what we are measuring. This is the signal that we care about, but that signal isn’t always clear. Often, that signal is muddied or blurred by noise, a random/sporadic or useless signal that needs to be removed/ignored in order to understand the signal that we actually care about. Think of noise as static interference that occurs on TVs. This “noise” distorts images and makes it hard for us to see what’s actually on the TV. 

In his recent book, The Performance Cortex, Zach Schonbrun discusses neuroscience topics related to athletic performance and development (Schonbrun, 2018). He illustrates the concept of neural noise at length in one chapter, including a quote from early research done by Wolpert and Harris that summarizes the theory of noise interference and movement:

Movements can be described as trajectories that minimize post-movement variance in the presence of signal-dependent noise. – Harris & Wolpert, 1998

As discussed by Schonbrun, noise is present throughout all stages of the sensorimotor control loop, from sensory input to motor signal output. Through practice and familiarity of task, we are able to prepare for and adapt to this noise, improving our performance at the task. By applying this model of neuronal noise to athletes, it would make sense that athletes who elicit less noise during brain activity are more efficient with their allocation of brain resources and can perform at their most optimal level.

The Flash-Lag Effect

Flash-Lag Effect From Michael’s Visual Phenomena & Optical Illusions (Bach, n.d.)

This gif is a visual representation of the flash-lag effect taken from Michael’s Visual Phenomena & Optical Illusions. As you watch the image, you’ll observe two things:

1. Where the two lines nearly meet, the flashing line appears to lag a little behind the other line.
2. The flashing line seems to have a different angle where they meet; there’s a kink.

In reality, the two lines align perfectly:

How is this possible? The answer is that your brain actually lives in the past because of the lag processing time of visual signals.

If this is the first time you’ve heard of that concept, it might be difficult to wrap your head around, but it’s actually quite simple! Basically, it’s impossible for your view of the world to be recreated in the brain instantaneously. It takes time for those images to be processed and recreated.

Light signals pass through the eyes and are focused onto photoreceptors that then convert the information into electrical signals, which can be interpreted by the brain. This transfer and process of information is where the delay occurs. There is a significant delay in the arrival of those photoreceptor signals into visual cortical areas (Nijhawan, 2002). Our brains attempt to counteract this delay and reconstruct events into a cohesive picture of the world through planning mechanisms. These mechanisms take into account processing delays that need to occur and, thus, recreate an internal model where moving objects are “perceived” a bit ahead of their assumed trajectory. The brain then plans movements and motor outputs based around this “prediction” of the world.

While the Flash-Lag effect is interesting, it is rarely studied because most daily activities occur at low speeds, where the brains prediction of the world is closely aligned with reality. However, the process of tracking a baseball pitch on the way to the plate occurs in half a second, at such a high speed that the flash-lag effect is applicable. As you track a baseball coming out of the pitcher’s hand, the prediction of what you “see” is actually just the brain’s best approximation, and not what your eye actually sees. Recreating this prediction of the world, specifically the baseballs location as it crosses the plate, requires an allocation of brain resources.

Theoretically, as you track more pitches, you’ll become more proficient at accomplishing this task. As discussed earlier, efficient brain activity can help optimize athletic performance. So, how can we use this phenomena and the concept of neural noise to prepare a hitter for success the moment they step into the box and track their first live pitch of the day? The answer may be priming and how we approach pre-game batting practice. A baseball thrown at 50 mph from 40 feet away is going to elicit a very different flash-lag effect in a hitter’s brain compared to high-speed machine BP; the latter is going be a lot closer to what a hitter sees in games.

The Emotiv EPOC+ Case Study Part 2: Comparing the effects of different practice techniques on brain activity during live pitch tracking

Currently, there is limited research on EEG data and pitch tracking. There has been some work on EEG activity while tracking virtual pitches on a screen (Muraskin, Sherwin, & Sajda, 2015). Because of this, the goal of this case study was to collect EEG data on a hitter tracking pitches while in the batter’s box to begin generating EEG biomarkers of performance within hitting. We don’t really know what a good or bad EEG signal looks like while a hitter tracks pitches coming into the zone, so we can’t really compare signal between different hitters just yet. However, we can look at the amount of noise present in their signal as an indicator of efficiency and performance. We also wanted to investigate whether the signal characteristics changed following different prep work before tracking live pitches:

• No practice or prep (Control)
• Tee work
• Soft toss
• Normal batting practice
• High speed batting practice

We hypothesized that high speed BP would be the most beneficial for an athlete based on the flash-lag effect and the principle of specificity, high-speed BP being the most similar to an in-game pitch thrown in terms of ball sped and flight patterns. We also hypothesized that the brain activity for the first live pitch of the day in the no-practice condition would be the most inefficient (noisy). We used the EmotivePro software in combination with the Emotiv EPOC+ to collect EEG data. These EEG captures were all recorded from the same hitter and taken on separate days to avoid any carryover effect between conditions.

Qualitative Analysis of EEG Data:

First, we had the hitter step into the box with no prep work or practice swings to get a baseline of what EEG activity looked like for our control condition. We also had him continue to stand in for 25 pitches and recorded EEG activity on the last few pitches of the bullpen:

The images above display the EEG signal across all 14 electrodes (a high-pass frequency filter was applied to help reduce the interference of movement artifacts). We used EmotivPro’s marker feature to label separate time points during pitch tracking for analysis later; these are indicated by the 3 vertical red lines:

1st line: the pitcher comes set

2nd line: the pitcher begins leg lift

3rd line: the ball hits the catcher’s glove.

The area of interest for pitch tracking lies in the latter half of space between the 2nd and 3rd vertical lines:

As you can tell, there is a lot of neural noise present while tracking that first pitch of the day. Notice how jagged and sporadic the signal appears in the first pitch of the day compared to the 25th, indicating a significant reduction in noise. This opens the possibility that the more live pitches a hitter has seen on the day, the more prepared he will be to hit. From here, we can now compare EEG activity in pitch tracking following different prep work to these controls to identify differences:

First, pitch tracking following Tee Work: 4-5 rounds hitting off the tee.

Still a lot of noise present during pitch tracking.

Second, pitch tracking following Soft Toss: 4-5 rounds of soft toss.

Again, lots of noise present during pitch tracking.

Third, pitch tracking following Normal Batting Practice: 4-5 rounds of standard batting practice.

Large amount of noise still present.

Fourth, pitch tracking following High-Speed Machine BP: 4-5 rounds hitting off the pitching machine set up on the mound at high speed ( >90 mph)

It isn’t until we get to the high-speed machine BP condition that we see a signal with significantly less noise in comparison to the other conditions. The noise level in this condition actually appears to be lower than when the hitter had tracked 25 live pitches:

Alternatively, the signal recorded following tee work, soft toss, and batting practice appears to be more similar in comparison to the signal recorded during the no-prep work (control) condition:

Quantitative Band Power Analysis

While these gifs and pictures provide some insight into what’s going on during pitch tracking in a hitters brain, the comparisons made above are primarily qualitative in nature. Quantitative analysis of EEG signal is fairly complex and requires further filtering and processing. While we are currently working towards being able to run in-depth quantitative analysis to produce objective data from the EEG recordings in the future, for now, we can use EmotivPro’s band power analysis to compare amplitudes of signal within frequency bands of interest. In our case, those frequency bands will be under the beta wave range:

Both of these band power analyses were performed during the pitch-tracking region of the recording. You can see in the tee-work condition that there was significantly higher amplitudes in the beta frequency range in comparison to the high-speed BP condition, where there was barely any amplitude of beta wave activity, indicating a more efficient allocation of resources and brain activity during pitch tracking after high-speed batting practice.

Discussion and Implications

This idea isn’t really that novel when we think about how pitchers use off-speed pitches to throw off a hitter’s timing. The idea behind a change-up is in its name, to change speeds. This change of speed is supposed to make it harder for the hitter to catch up to the fastball. If that’s the case, in a standard pregame batting practice where the hitter sees low velocity, we’re hitting off pitches that are significantly slower than change-ups, and they are rarely seeing anything that is similar to a game speed fastball. How can we expect a hitter’s timing, and in this case their brain activity, to be prepared and ready for a 95 mph fastball when they step into the box for the first time if they haven’t seen anything like that all day?

Does this research suggest that hitters should exclusively be using high-speed machine batting practice as their primary form of practice and training? Not at all. When training athletes, we look at the big picture and try to create significant adaptations in the long-run that are sustainable. We create individualized training programs tailored towards an athlete’s specific needs based on their assessments, with an understanding of constraint-based approaches to optimize their athletic development. This means that some athletes may not even be in a position where hitting off a high-speed pitching machine is beneficial to their long-term development at the moment. Constraint drills still have a lot of value in remapping athlete’s movement patterns and tendencies.

However, is it possible that high-speed machine BP could be used as an alternative to standard pre-game BP in order to elicit acute adaptations in a hitter’s brain? It’s quite possible, and the data above appears to suggest just that. This case study is by no means the be all and end all of brain activity research in baseball, but it’s a good start in a new frontier of baseball research and player development that’s wide open.

This article was written by Research Associate Anthony Brady

References

Bach, M. (n.d.). Flash-Lag Effect. Retrieved September 6, 2018, from http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/mot-flashLag/index.html

Cheron, G., Petit, G., Cheron, J., Leroy, A., Cebolla, A., Cevallos, C., … Dan, B. (2016). Brain Oscillations in Sport: Toward EEG Biomarkers of Performance. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 246.

Harris, C. M., & Wolpert, D. M. (1998). Signal-dependent noise determines motor planning. Nature, 394(6695), 780–784.

Muraskin, J., Sherwin, J., & Sajda, P. (2015). Knowing when not to swing: EEG evidence that enhanced perception-action coupling underlies baseball batter expertise. NeuroImage, 123, 1–10.

Nijhawan, R. (2002). Neural delays, visual motion and the flash-lag effect. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(9), 387.

Schonbrun, Z. (2018). The Performance Cortex: How Neuroscience is Redefining Athletic Genius. Birlinn Ltd.

The post Priming a Hitter’s Brain: EEG Case Study Part 2 appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

At Driveline, we implement player-development systems based around metrics that will ultimately optimize performance. For example, from a pitching standpoint we work on developing velocity, designing pitches, and maximizing recovery, among other systems. This intuitive, multi-faceted approach is already being applied in hitting, but we can further apply this to other positions on the field.

Let’s start with the other half of the battery, the guy behind the plate.

We could spend a long time breaking down the ways in which a catcher’s value is determined: receiving, hitting ability, pitch calling, arm strength, etc. But for now, let’s isolate it down to a job they are most well-known for and is also unique to their position: throwing out baserunners.

The Metric

First, in order to create change and have an impact on a specific metric, we need to understand how it’s measured and broken down. In this case, pop time, or the amount of time it takes for the baseball to travel from the catcher’s glove to the fielder’s glove at second base. While we are aware that other components factor into a runner’s being caught stealing (pitcher’s time to the plate, accuracy of the throw, fielder’s tag, etc.), we also know that pop time is highly correlated with runner’s getting caught stealing.

Let’s break down pop time into two segments:

• Exchange time: the time from a catcher’s receiving the the ball to releasing it.
• Ball flight time: the time from a catcher’s release to a fielder’s receiving the ball.

“As a catcher and coach, when we say that we are going to work on throwing today…[this] turns into an exchange and footwork day instead…not often do we spend time developing arm strength.”—Jacob Garcia, graduate assistant at the University of Washington and former collegiate catcher at University of Northern Colorado

Currently in baseball, there is a persistence that exchange time is the primary determinant of improving a backstop’s value on limiting basepath advances.

Baseball twitter: what do you think is the most important aspect factoring into a catcher’s pop time?@Alex_Caravan and I are working on a little side project breaking down catcher statcast data at @drivelinebases

— Anthony Brady MS, CSCS (@BaseballFreak_9) October 6, 2018

As referenced above, the majority of practice time and skill work is spent on transfer technique aimed at decreasing exchange time. Intuitively, this makes sense. Getting the throw off quicker means that the ball should arrive to the fielder faster.

But why not look at the larger component of a base-stealing attempt: ball flight time? The actual throw from the backstop to second base covers approximately 127 feet (some quick Pythagorean math can derive this for the skeptics); it takes just over a second (1.0025 secs) for an 87-mph throw to travel from home plate to second base, and that is without accounting for the ball’s decelerating over time due to factors like drag.

Over a full second is comfortably higher than any major-league catcher’s average exchange time. (The lowest across all qualifying catchers in 2018 was 0.84.) And that’s with an 87-mph throw, which in 2018 was faster than most catchers’ top 10% of throws (faster than 33/46). To further put that into perspective, from 2015 to 2018, exchange time made up only 36.6% of pop time, with ball flight time making up the other 63.4%.

Note: For all analyses and numbers in this piece, we looked at only catchers who had at least 15 throw attempts to 2nd base in said individual year.

So if ball flight time is the largest contributing factor to pop time, shouldn’t there be a greater emphasis on reducing that factor, rather than primarily focusing on exchange time reduction? Furthermore, transferring the ball from glove to throwing hand and into release is a highly technical skill that happens in a short amount of time. Because of this, the exchange is arguably not only a hard skill to master but also even harder to teach and improve.

Alternatively, ball flight time can be reduced by simply throwing the ball harder. While that may not necessarily be easier, here at Driveline, we have a pretty good idea on how to develop arm strength and increase throwing velocity. Before we go any further, let’s dive a little deeper into the stats.

The Stats

Conveniently, Statcast measures the exchange time the same way as it’s defined above, the time from a catcher’s receiving the ball to releasing it. While you can simply calculate ball flight time (pop time – exchange time), Statcast measures arm strength, which we can use as a predictor of ball flight time.

Note: Arm strength signifies the average of the top 10 percentile of all throws for said catcher since Statcast has not yet released throw-by-throw data.

Looking at these metrics for all qualifying catchers in the Statcast era (2015–2018), we can glean a few notable facts just from a quick surface-level analysis.

First, exchange time and arm strength are both significantly correlated with pop time for each year by ANOVA one-way results. Second, each year shows a stronger correlation between arm strength and pop time than between exchange time and pop time.

So yes, reducing exchange time (something catchers universally are trained in and work on) does help in reducing pop time. But more importantly, arm strength (something catchers are much less frequently trained in and focus on) seems to help even more in reducing pop time. (The difference in the strength of correlations was not significant, after a Fisher Z transformation.)

Below are the cold, hard (less glitzy) numbers on the strength of the R-squared values, the square of the correlations.

Arm Strength and Pop Time

But If I try throwing harder, won’t my exchange time slow down?

Not quite.

Analyzing the relationship between these catchers’ arm strength and exchange times, we see a near-nil correlation between the two. In other words, there’s no reason to fear that training will impact the ability to excel in the other one. In addition, looking at descriptive statistics for sub-segments of our population of pitchers, there is no discernable difference in average exchange times between the hardest and the softest throwers.

Graph: A measure of the average exchange times for the noted time periods with their standard errors being noted as tick marks.

A t-test comparison between any of the potential pairings fails to yield significant results; the highest t value only reaches an absolute value of around 0.5 units and a subsequent p-value of 0.33.

Implications and Applications

Based on the breakdown and stats outlined above, there is an argument that catchers should emphasize developing arm strength at a similar level so that exchange technique is emphasized. And that is strictly from the standpoint of throwing out baserunners. Prioritizing arm strength, recovery, arm health, and proper throwing mechanics is extremely valuable for catchers as they throw a baseball more times during a game than any other position. Because of this, there should also be more of an emphasis placed on recovery, arm health, and proper throwing mechanics.

NOT All Catchers Are the Same

Individualizing development is still king. There is not a one-size-fits-all model for catcher development—and there probably never will be. Understanding the breakdown of catcher pop time is valuable for coaches to target specific player’s weaknesses. A catcher with a cannon for an arm and poor exchange technique is in a spot where the majority of the focus should be on skill work aimed at reducing that exchange time. Alternatively, a catcher who comes into a program with elite transfer technique and an average-to-below average arm does not have very much room to improve and refine exchange time with further drill work. However, such a catcher may be in a great place to significantly improve pop time by prioritizing arm strength and implementing a program based around that.

Low-hanging fruit in sports analytics is becoming more and more scarce. Let’s take a moment to appreciate a fairly easy and simple revelation that taps into a baseball catcher’s ability to improve part of their game. While throwing hard might be the best determinant in throwing out runners on the basepath, throwing hard is not something that a catcher’s training program focuses on with appropriate weight.

This article was co-authored by Biomechanist Anthony Brady and Quantitative Analyst Alex Caravan.

The post Breaking Down Pop Time appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

The foundation of our coaching at Driveline is the athlete assessment, which includes data collection using various baseball technologies. These innovative tools are helping us help our athletes more than ever, because we don’t have to guess anymore. When we tell a hitter something about their swing, we have data to support it.

I must admit (because I’ve seen it first hand), that pitching development via technology outraced hitting development, but it’s time to start gaining some ground back.

Now we can collect data on batted balls and swing kinematics in real time and in training. At Driveline, I have the luxury of being able to have access to these tools and groups of athletes.  However, the question remained, “how do I use this to make hitters better?” We spend a lot of time and energy in learning how to properly collect all this data, and most importantly, how to make it actionable and usable for coaches working in the cages. And how we apply this all comes down to our assessment.

Why Do You Need to Assess Your Hitters?

Greg Rose asks a great question: “Why guess when you can assess?” When working with athletes, it’s our job to make sure that we are getting them better.

Step one in that process is establishing the areas of improvement. For a number of reasons, assessing hitters has typically been done by watching them swing, and then suggesting ways to improve based on what the coach perceives as in need of improvement. Many coaches have an incredible eye for this, and have helped hitters tremendously just based off what they can see with their naked eye and with video.

However, it is a general frustration for hitters, as they will hit with X number of coaches and get X number of things that they need to improve. The opinions of various coaches, which may or may not be true, often contradict one another. Fortunately for us, technology has empowered us with the tools to take most of the guessing out of it, and begin to objectively measure the things that matter. We don’t have to guess anymore.

It’s my opinion that technology will never replace the coaches, but the coaches who knows how to use the technology will replace those who don’t.

When we run assessments, we don’t just hand the athlete a spreadsheet with their data and tell them to fix it. The assessment and data collection is simply a tool that can help us coaches do our jobs better, and the data is only as valuable as it is applied. Coaches often see this stuff as a threat, when in actuality its just a tool to help you help your athletes. This is how it helps us:

Our basic model at Driveline is the Test-Retest Model

1. Driveline trainers assess the athlete, starting on their first day training with us.
   • Collect Data (batted ball profile, swing kinematics, strength and mobility)
   • Run analysis on data
   • Target areas for improvement
2. We design a program to improve targeted areas
   • Using data from the assessment, we can design individualized programming tackling the athlete’s biggest limiting factors to performance
   • Set objective goals for the athlete
3. We re-test.
   1. Every 2-3 weeks, analyze their data
   2. See what has improved and what hasn’t
4. Update programming
   • Make changes in training phase (bat speed, attack angle, etc)
   • And this cycle repeats itself.

So, What do we Measure?

Note: all assessment data is collected when hitting off of a pitching machine at game-speed velocity. 

Batted Ball Profile

How the ball comes off the bat is extremely valuable feedback. Coaches and scouts have always used ball fight or the sound of contact as feedback on the hitter. Using a HitTrax and/or Rapsodo Hitting, we can get a much more reliable assessment. We collect every batted ball at Driveline and run analysis on it to generate reports. In a week, we can get an entire season’s worth of batted balls to help us understand the hitter. During an assessment, we can collect roughly an MLB season’s worth of batted balls (~300) against a high-speed pitching machine in just one week. Often people think that we just use peak exit velocity and average launch angle of batted balls, but as you’ll see, it’s much more complex than that.

*The examples/images of graphs below are of various hitters we’ve had in the facility*

Exit Velocity

Peak Exit Velo

Peak exit velo is important. To become a pro, there is typically a threshold you much surpass to even be considered. Every pro that has ever hit at Driveline has hit a ball 100 MPH. Because it was easier to measure pitching velocity, pitchers are accustomed to benchmarking their velocity as a component of their performance. Today, pitchers are very unlikely to play professional baseball today if you throw 85 MPH. Hitting is no different.

More Exit Velo Data

Being capable of hitting the ball hard is one thing. Being able to hit it hard consistently is another, and a large separator between successful hitters at every level. But looking at just average exit velo isn’t enough. For that reason we measure average EV, hard hit% (percentage of balls hit >90% of your peak), barrel consistency (average velo/peak velo), exit velocity within certain launch angle windows, and the standard deviation of exit velocity. All are slightly unique indicators of how consistently the hitter hits the ball hard, and can tell us not only that he can move the bat fast, but with quickness and precision.

Exit Velocity. Hitter 1 can hit the ball harder, but hitter 2 hits the ball hard more consistently.

How hard does the hitter hit the ball? At what angles? How does it compare to our pro data?

We will also split it up to see if the hitter has an deficiencies to a certain part of the field or certain area of the strike zone.

By Field

How does your data look by field?

What is the hitter’s peak and Average EV by Horizontal LA? (right handed hitter, -45 is left field line, 45 is right field line)

A comparison of average EV by HLA for two right handed hitters. Hitter 1 loses EV as he goes oppo, while the other maintains EV to all fields.

By Launch Angle

What is the hitter’s Peak and Average EV based on launch angle? Note: this hitter has an average attack angle of 18.

Note: this hitter has an average attack angle of -3.5.

By Depth

HitTrax gives us data on the depth of batted balls, so we can run analysis based on how deep or out front they are making contact.

Example of HitTrax point of contact data on two hitters from a hitting session

Hitter 1 has a higher peak exit velocity, but a smaller “sweet spot” for depth, whereas hitter 2 can hit balls hard within a wider range of depth.

Peak and Average EV by zone

How does the hitter hit the ball in different areas of the strike zone?

Launch Angle

Looking at a hitter’s launch angle can tell us a lot about his swing. Instead of just looking only at the average launch angle, we dive really deep into the data to learn about the hitter. We look at launch angle based on pitch location, point of contact depth, or field. (For instance: one of the most common flaws we see within a batted ball profile are a very low launch angles to the pull side. A very small percentage of our hitters can successfully pull the ball with a high exit velo at a good launch angle)

We also look at the launch angle of a hitter’s hardest hit balls, as it can tell us about their attack angle. We look at their average launch angle of hard hit balls compared to their average launch angle overall, and their distribution of mishits to get an idea of where they are going wrong.  We look at the percentage of balls that a hitter hits within 10-35 degrees and the standard deviation of launch angle to see how often they are squaring it up. These are just a few examples, but understanding a hitter is a complex problem, and we look at many aspects of launch angle to get an full picture of their swing. Here are some visual examples of how we use launch angle to diagnose swing flaws.

A comparison of two right handed hitter’s average LA by HLA. Hitter 2’s LA is very determined by his HLA (aka Spray Angle)

From a Team Assessment; average LA by field for each hitter.

What is the hitter’s average launch angle, average launch angle of hard hit balls (balls hit with EV >90% of peak EV), and standard deviation of launch angle?

Blast

We use Blast Motion to track our hitter’s progress in a few areas. Primarily, we look at bat speed, hand speed, attack angle and time to impact. This is a tremendously valuable way to assess your hitters, and to target potential areas for improvement. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that our better hitters swing the bat faster, generally speaking. (Our current average bat speed of pro hitters is 6.2 mph faster than our undrafted but draft-eligible college players).

Attack angle is the vertical angle that the bat is going at impact. I encourage all our hitters to have an average attack angle between 5-15 degrees, like most pros. (Ideal attack angle windows will vary depending on bat speed). A very large percentage of our college summer trainees displayed negative attack angles during their assessment. In many cases, hitters possessed enough bat speed to be an elite college hitter, but with a negative attack angle, they weren’t able to efficiently strike the ball. These players typically lost exit velo as they climb the launch angle ladder, and waste a lot of their bat speed by hitting their hardest balls on the ground. These players get put onto our “attack angle” phase of training.

2 week improvement for a college hitter this summer. Disclaimer: it’s not typical to see gains this large in such a short period of time.

K-Vest

K-Vest gives us kinematic data on hitters. This graph shows rotational velocity over time of the pelvis, torso, lead arm and lead hand. We can tell if a hitter is moving out of sequence, or is lacking speed gain between segments of the kinetic chain.

Example: Imagine two hitter’s both have the same pelvis rotational speed, but one is able to transfer energy up the chain and rotate his torso much faster. The hitter with the poor speed gain could have an number of issues (technique issue, lack of strength, lack of separation, lack of mobility in thoracic spine, etc). This is when we would check the video, look at other assessment data, and work with the athlete to try to figure out the why and fix it.

K-Vest also gives us data on posture/positions of the pelvis and torso throughout the swing. We measure position in 3 planes (turn, bend and side bend) throughout the swing, and we can compare a hitters positions to the average and standard deviations from our a database of affiliated professional hitters. We have a lot to learn, but being able to flag potential issues with positioning has helped us work with hitters and design their swing/make tweaks with their set up to ensure they are in a position to move efficiently. It also gives us degrees of hip-shoulder separation throughout the swing, which has been very valuable so far.

Analyzing positions throughout the swing with K-Vest. With conditional cell formatting set based on pro averages and standard deviations, we can flag potential swing issues. Positions as defined by K-Vest    Heel Strike: beginning of hip forward rotation. First Move: when the hands begin to move towards the pitcher

Physical Screen

Our athletes go through a comprehensive physical screen. Many times, we can discover the “what” by looking at hitter’s batted ball profile or kinematics, but the psychical screen often tells us the “why.”

For instance, if we had a hitter who lacked the ability to quickly decelerate his pelvis, as measured by K-Vest, the first thing I’d look for is stability and internal rotation range of motion in his lead/blocking leg.

Integration with strength and medical is critical to our training at Driveline, and our assessment in our area can help point us in the right direction for another.

TPI Movement Screen

Hitters will go through:  a full TPI movement screen, manual muscle test, PRI assessments, upper and lower limb tension test, active ROM test, Faber test, VBT test, strength tests and others.

Here are a few screenshots from TRAQ, (the internal tracking software we developed to help ourselves and other teams manage data), displaying things we measure during our assessment.

VBT (velocity based training) numbers

Some data from our range of motion and Mobility Screen

Meeting with Athletes- Helping Them Apply the Data

So, once we accumulate all of this data, what do we do with it? The application of this information is truly what matters.

The assessment data needs to be understood and made actionable by our coaching staff.

At the end of the assessment, the hitter will sit down with the coach to go over their report. At the end of the meeting, I want one thing to be clear to the athlete: What are you working to improve, and how are you going to get there? I think the most powerful thing that the assessment creates is objective goals for each athlete. At the end of the meeting, we will have objective goals set for each hitter. So, when they come in every day, they have a deliberate plan as to what they are trying to accomplish. Far too many hitters just go into the cage without a plan, and end up never getting any better.

Training without a plan is just guessing.

The depth at which I’ll go over the data with the athlete depends on the athlete. The last thing I want to do is paralyze the athlete with numbers. If the athlete shows interest in analyzing the data and is able to comprehend it, I’m more than happy to do so. I love working with these “future coach” type of hitters. However, some of my favorite trainees are the ones who say “Jason, I trust you and your program. That’s why I’m paying. That’s why I’m here. Just tell me what to do every day and I’ll do it.”

We at Driveline have the luxury of being able to study this stuff full time. The truth is, most athletes don’t have the technical knowledge we have in data analysis, biomechanics, kinesiology, motor learning or really any aspect of sports science. That’s okay. Most hitters don’t want a math or biomechanics lesson, and its highly probably that it would do more harm than good anyway. They want to train and get after it, and be guided by an expert. I used to resent athletes that felt this way, but I’ve grown to respect it.

Another function of the athlete meeting is to go over the plan and, whether or not they want to dive into the data, I want to give the athlete some ownership. Coaching here is different than my previous experience as a college coach because the athlete is paying to be here, and we are basically working for them. We work with professional hitters who spend their offseason away from home to train, so I want to serve them as best as possible, and communication is key.

It goes like this: “The report shows your areas of improvement to be ___,___,___.   _____ is what I suggest and why. These are the different ways we can go about it. What do you want to do?”

An example of that would be a hitter who displays very poor batted ball metrics on the outside pitch. I will tell them: “we can design your program to patch this hole in your swing, or you can just learn to never swing at those pitches unless you have to.”

Or if they have large dropoff in EV to the opposite field. We can either learn to hit the ball better that way, or just learn to not go oppo. Both are good options for some hitters, and a lot of variables are considered when making these decisions:

How long are you going to train for? If you come to me 2 weeks before spring training and we see a major hole in your swing, I’d be less open to patching the hole, and more likely to encourage you to learn to be best with what you have.

Where are you developmentally? I’m not concerned about your LA on balls to the opposite field if you’re 21 years old and your peak EV is 94 mph. Any and all training economy needs to be allocated towards developing bat speed and rotational velocity.

Programming

Once the assessment is done, we will put the athlete on programming designed to target their specific training goals. Using our TRAQ software, we have built out templates for various hitting programs. 

If they get the assessment and train at home, we will retest once they revisit the gym. If they stay at Driveline, we will retest after 2-3 weeks of training to see if the programming has been successful in fixing what we’ve targeted as “in need of improvement.” The test-retest model holds both athlete and coach accountable.

If a hitter gets an assessment and decides he needs to work on say, bat speed and swing depth, then he deserves to know if the program is working, and we can measure it. Many hitters train days on end and go in circles, not ever improving, because they have no idea if what they are doing is actually working. Skills are acquired incrementally over time, and technology has allowed us to track that progress and immediately make adjustments if an athlete begins to plateau.

This is just an introduction to our assessment and a deeper glimpse into how we approach our training of hitters at Driveline. The term “data-driven” is not just a buzzword. Our training is driven by our data, and when that level of information is coupled with effective coaching skills, we can help our hitters better than ever.

The post An Introduction to Driveline Hitting Assessments: The Why, What and How appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

Over the past few months, we’ve been traveling around the country performing assessments on athletes with our mobile biomechanics lab. The lab is a crucial piece of our assessment process since the summer of 2017. The reason it’s so key to our process is the data it provides and how it combines with our strength assessment. The culmination of this data shows much clearer than ever before how our athletes move and produce force. But what’s more important here is how it provides us with a means of creating actionable changes to an athlete’s mechanics that circumvent some of the frustrations of a traditional approach.

The Assessment Process

Before we go into how we address mechanical changes, we need to understand the type of data we’re looking at in each piece of the assessment process.

Biomechanics:

The biomechanics lab is a markered system that measures the kinematics and joint kinetics throughout the throwing motion—or the motion of segments and joints, as well as the underlying forces acting upon those joints. Typically, we look at measurements starting at foot contact, not to be confused with foot plant, since this is only the initial moment when the foot first contacts the ground up until ball release.

We can use this data to provide us with a clearer look at what positions an athlete is achieving at various points within his delivery. This provides a huge advantage over any other means of quantifying movement. For example, if instead we used video to assess an athlete’s movement, not only do we lack a full 360-degree perspective of the movement, but also if we filmed the same throw with slow motion on an iPhone, which films at 240 fps, and an athlete’s arm is rotating at 6,000 deg/sec, we’d lose 25-degrees of motion between each frame. That’s a significant amount of motion that video can’t show.

Just look at this edgertronic video of Trevor throwing. Even at extremely high frame rates, his arm still blurs, and we lose a lot of understanding of how he’s actually moving.

Furthermore, a biomechanics assessment allows us to see things imperceptible to the eye, even on high-quality slow-motion video. For example, you may be able to see that an athlete is generating a decent amount of hip-to-shoulder separation on video, but you can’t see the timing of when the pelvis rotation peaks in comparison to torso rotation. Within the biomechanics data, we are not only able to quantify the degrees of separation but also the crucial timing of when the pelvis and torso reach peak angular velocity.

ROM:

The ROM assessment in and of itself isn’t groundbreaking. We hand measure each ROM with a goniometer and assess both active and passive ROMs for various movements. Some of this data provides us with potential injury predictors; others provide us with stability or ROM restrictions that may be impacting performance. The main piece here is that it’s not subjective. Each position is measured, which limits the experimenter bias that may happen in less objective ROM assessment processes.

Strength:

The strength assessment seeks to examine an athlete’s force-velocity profile. We use the tendo unit to determine barbell velocities at three different percentages (30%, 40%, and 50%) of an idealized one-rep max (1RM) for squat, deadlift, and bench press. The 1RM is determined using an allometric score, factoring both the height and weight of an athlete. This data can then give us some insight into how strong, how explosive, and how efficient an athlete is at moving at different weights.

What does it look like?

To help provide some context as to what each piece of the assessment looks like, here’s a snippet of data from one of our pro pitchers, who used to sit in the mid 90s but now averages upper 80s.

The photo above is a look at the max hip-to-shoulder separation he generates during his delivery and at the timing of his peak-pelvis rotational velocity to his peak-torso rotational velocity. Ideally, here we want to see him generate a higher degree of hip-to-shoulder separation and have the timing between peak pelvis and torso rotation be at .05s or greater.

From the ROM assessment we see that his thoracic ROM is significantly lower on the left side. Since he’s a left-handed pitcher, it’s common to have a deficit to the throwing side. However, we know he already generates a low amount of hip-to-shoulder separation and because of this we would like to see a higher degree of thoracic rotation.

His strength assessment is significantly below the parameters we look for on all weights, but by examining the spreads between velocities, we see that the gap between them is fairly consistent, though greater than what we typically like to see. This suggests that the athlete is likely weak but explosive in nature since the lightest weight was only .18 off the mark, whereas the heaviest weight was .41 below the desired number.

Examining the Assessment at a Macro Scale

Admittedly, we’re not the first to use any one of these pieces to assess athletes. ASMI has had a biomechanics lab since 1987, ROM has been assessed long before the invention of the first goniometer, and, though velocity-based training technology is somewhat new, strength coaches have been using various percentages for decades to assess and train their athletes.

The game changer is how we examine the assessment. Typically, most places provide assessment reports in the form of piece-by-piece data labeling inefficiencies, similar to the above. There are also no prescriptions to correct these inefficiencies, so unless you have a high-level knowledge of movement, mobility, and stability, you really don’t know how to go about enacting change.

What we aim to do at Driveline is to combine each piece into a whole and then attack any deficiencies through an integrated approach. To better provide clarity, let’s discuss all of the data above from our pro pitcher and how they factor together.

So, we know from the biomechanics report that the athlete mentioned above is lacking hip-to-shoulder separation and the timing of this movement is poor. This is likely linked to his lack of thoracic ROM and his inability to rotate to his throwing side, but why can’t he rotate? The last piece of the assessment helps provide an answer: he’s lacking strength. So, for an athlete who once threw in the mid 90s, his hips and torso have to rotate at extremely high velocities. If his strength is poor, especially hip and core, then his body will provide protective tightness so that he doesn’t put damaging levels of stress on his spine.

What you haven’t seen is that his right hip also has a deficit in hip IR, creating a total IR/ER ROM deficit of 14 degrees. The right hip has created protective tightness to prevent itself from working into a ROM it doesn’t feel safe in, the lumbar spine has since become mobile rather than stable, and this has caused him to experience a myriad of lower-back issues over the years. From there, his t-spine has become stable since the lumbar spine is now mobile, the root cause for his significant deficit in hip-to-shoulder separation. Furthermore, this carries all the way up to the shoulder where he has a slight deficit in left-shoulder IR causing a total IR/ER ROM deficit in the throwing shoulder that is similar in nature to the right hip.

In order to get him back to throwing mid 90s, we first and foremost need to restore ROM and strength to the hips and core.

Does This Really Matter?

You may be reading this and say, “Well I’ve done parts of this. My trainers collect ROM data, I use video, my strength coaches improve strength. We’re doing all of these things even though we don’t sit down and discuss it together. Does that matter?” Or maybe you only do some of these things, but not all, so how does that impact the way you program and coach?

Let’s take a look at the same pro athlete’s data and consider how if you only look at one piece of the assessment, then you may wind up spinning your wheels and not developing your athlete at all, or worst case, decreasing his performance. For example, say you only look at the biomechanics data and see his deficit in hip-to-shoulder separation. We know we need to improve this, so you program roll-in drills to help him get into a position where his torso is closed while the pelvis opens into foot contact. However, he’s physically incapable of getting into that position, and repeatedly doing it and failing overtime will result in both he and you growing frustrated. You might think he’s lazy and he loses buy in with what you’re trying to get him to do.

This kind of scenario happens all the time in a variety of ways. We’ve seen it with athletes from a ROM aspect as well. The same athlete could come in and get assessed and find out he has a deficit in thoracic rotation. His coach programs a bunch of mobility drills around t-spine mobility, but the athlete is hypermobile and lacks stability. He does the drills religiously, but he winds up having worse rotation than at the beginning. Often the coach goes on to blame the athlete—saying he didn’t do the work, he was lazy with his reps—and meanwhile the athlete’s getting worse because his body craves stability and all you’re doing is adding more ROM.

Lastly, imagine you only look at his strength data. Sure, you know he’s weak and you know he has to get stronger, but what you may not see is the deficit in hip mobility. You may spend the next few training blocks hammering out bilateral strength, but if you’re not addressing his frontal plane and core stability, you may not help him restore his ROM. You’ve helped him gain a bunch of strength, but he may not be able to effectively apply that force and transfer it because his movement quality is still poor.

Building a Different Approach to Mechanics

We’ve addressed part of this already, but to take this full circle, let’s discuss how we can use the assessment data to make changes to an athlete’s mechanics.

If you follow Driveline, you likely have an idea of how we use backwards chaining, over- and under-load weighted baseballs, plyoballs, and high-intensity training to alter mechanics. It’s a huge piece of our success and one that we’re constantly refining. One of the ways we’re doing this currently is using our biomechanics report to adjust programming by altering what plyoballs are thrown, what drills we use, how many reps are performed, as well as other things to influence mechanical changes.

This is something the baseball world has roughly been doing forever: seeing mechanical flaws and using drills to try and correct for them. With the biomechanics report, we just have a much more targeted approach.

However, where the real magic happens is what we can do on the strength side to drive mechanical changes. As mentioned previously, a lot of the time you’re putting athletes in drills or coaching positions they’re actually incapable of getting into. Using the biomechanics, strength, and ROM assessments, we can structure soft-tissue work and a warm-up around an athlete’s deficiencies by working to open up ROM, strengthen through the newly obtained ROM, and then priming for the rest of the workout.

As for the actual lifts, consider this excellent quote by Vern Gambetta: “We want to train movements, not muscles.” Sure, we want to get guys stronger, but we have to target the movements we do poorly and strengthen the ones we do well. This is what helps drive mechanical changes.

For example, we’re big believers in using med balls once we’re confident an athlete’s hip and core strength is ready for it. Med balls work well because they’re a power exercise, but not so light that they create a large amount of fatigue, which provides us with a great way to get extra repetitions of the movements we want to change when we can’t throw more baseballs.

The key here is that we’re not giving the athletes answers; we’re not telling them how to move or breaking everything down into a specific movement. That’s not an efficient way to learn. Instead, we help athletes achieve the adequate strength and ROM to move more efficiently through weight-room work and then use high-intent weighted-ball training with external cueing as the bread crumbs to allow athletes to self discover how to move optimally for themselves.

The Wrap

What we really want you to take away from this post is the importance of a full in-depth assessment for improving player development. You may not have the ability to perform each of these pieces the way we do at Driveline, but if you aren’t integrating these pieces to really take an in-depth look at your athletes, then you’re missing out on huge opportunities to make strides in their performance.

However, this is all useless if you still go about trying to change mechanics solely through internal cueing or drill work. You need more than that. Changing ingrained movement patterns is difficult, especially when a large amount of how athletes move is purely a result of their strength and ROM. Start thinking about different ways to create movement change. Don’t break the movements down into unnecessary pieces, but start assessing them and then structuring programs around what the athletes’ deficiencies are. If you’re putting them in constraint drills that force them to correct their deficiencies in order to throw harder, you’ll start finding that athletes will often begin moving better on their own as they begin to gain the strength and ROM to do so.

This article was written by Head of Athlete Performance Sam Briend

The post Pitching Assessments and Changing Mechanics appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

During the summer of 2018, we had over 265 on-site pitching assessments from May to September. Of those 265 athletes that trained at our facility, both entry and exit bullpen data was recorded for 120 pitchers to run analyses on.

To obtain a more objective measurement on the net effect of our program, we revamped our initial bullpen protocols so that we could gain a more accurate baseline-velocity metric for our incoming athletes. Instead of having athletes throw just five fastballs off the mound during their first day at the facility, we decided to move their initial bullpen to day five and instructed them to throw anywhere from five to fifteen fastballs. These changes were designed to better prepare athletes to throw max intent, to mitigate any lingering effects of travel fatigue, and to increase sample size.

Overall, our entire sample of summer athletes gained an average of .74 mph on their fastballs, which increased to .95 mph for athletes who stayed at the facility for at least three weeks.

The average change in velocity for on-site athletes is smaller when compared to previous years. We attribute this change to a variety of reasons:

1.      Our methods for calculating initial baseline-velocity readings are more objective and better designed for athletes to throw as hard as possible during week one.
2.      Unlike in years past, athletes are no longer exclusively put on a velocity development program. We now have command, pitch-design programs and of course strength programs that are customized to athlete needs.
3.      Facilitated through our integration with TRAQ and Online Pitching, training plans can be better optimized for long-term development. As such, it is typical to see a heavier programming emphasis placed on the strength components of training for in-gym athletes.

Of course, beyond knowing what the average gain in velocity is for all our athletes, understanding how these gains are distributed is also important. Below is a density plot that illustrates the change in velocity for athletes who stayed longer than three weeks.

If we grouped the outcomes of our summer 2018 Athletes by the change in velocity in .5 mph increments, we get the table below:

Altogether, 60.61% of our summer 2018 athletes who stayed at least three weeks gained at least .5 mph on their average fastball velocity from initial to exit bullpen, 19.19% maintained about the same average velocity (±.5 mph), and 20.2% lost velocity from entry to exit bullpen.

This highlights a few important concepts in regard to velocity development:

1.      Gains are not linear nor uniform amongst an entire population. Some athletes experience gains immediately, whereas others do not. Therefore, it is vital that you view training from a long-term perspective, regardless of recent outcomes. This is why over 70% of our on-site athletes continue with us remotely once they leave the facility.
2.     Nothing is a guarantee when it relates to human performance. Improved velocity will always be a function of hard work, a well-functioning program, and chance. Even a big leaguer’s velocity fluctuates from start to start.
3.      Everyone’s body is unique and reacts differently to various stimuli. As a result, we constantly assess and reassess our athletes to assure that our programming meets their specific needs.

To visualize these concepts, we can plot the change in velocity for summer 2018 athletes by the days they spent in the facility using the scatterplot below.

On average, better outcomes occur for athletes who stay with us for longer periods of time. However, there will always be peaks and valleys (or variance) along the way.

Lastly, as mentioned above, a greater proportion of athletes who have trained on-site with us have shifted their training focus to programming outside of velocity development in its traditional form. With new advances in ball-flight technology, high-speed cameras, and training equipment, athletes can prioritize learning off-speed pitches, optimizing their arsenals, or developing command in more efficient ways.

It should be noted that velocity development is still king and what is most tightly correlated with improved performance. However, for the physically mature pitcher that has reached, or is on the cusp of reaching his velocity ceiling, a pitch design or command focus can help unlock more production out of an already established repertoire and be a more efficient usage of training economy (as measured below).   

As always, our data for our summer 2018 athletes is available, as well as our summer 2017 and summer 2016 data.

This article was written by Dan Aucoin

The post 2018 Summer Pitching Review appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

PLUS is an opportunity for baseball coaches and player to further their information edge and make their budget stretch further.

With PLUS, we want to lower the cost of player development for our hungriest coaches and players.

So what is DrivelinePLUS?

• Detailed how-to videos on baseball player development PLUS
• The best prices on Driveline equipment PLUS
• Special member-only products and discounts

Casually, We’ve described it to people as Netflix for baseball player development meets Costco for baseball player development.

It’s a single annual membership whose primary benefits are an inside, in-depth look at how we think about player development topics and low prices on high-quality development goods.

Why does DrivelinePLUS exist?

If you’re a college, high school or youth coach who is using Driveline concepts, you’re looking for an edge. Whether it’s keeping your best players on the field more often or helping your players get as good as possible, that’s what we think Driveline provides for coaches–an edge.

PLUS is a way to continue to reward the hungriest coaches by driving down their player development costs and giving them even deeper, more actionable information on a range of player development topics.

These are scaled by level and expertise as well.

We commonly hear “if I only had a lab like that, I’d love to work on pitch design with our guys”. PLUS can help you get that done on a high school or small college budget.

Additionally, there is some information that is not well-suited to a blog post. These are the practical and tactical day-to-day things that form the basis of training new employees here that coaches can really benefit from.

• How do we read Rapsodo reports? What are we focusing on?
• What information is coming out of Blast sensors? And how would we apply that?
• Can a coach make use of MLB Statcast data from baseball analytics sites for his high school or college team? What transfers to that level–and what doesn’t.

PLUS gives us the opportunity to really get into the weeds.

What are people saying about PLUS?

The outpouring from the baseball community has been very positive.

The bulk of Driveline’s trainers’ and executives’ time in 2018 was spent shooting videos and getting the site ready. We will be continuing to release five new videos every week.

PLUS videos Cover a Range of Player Development Topics

• Pitching Videos
• Hitting Videos
• Strength and Mobility Videos
• Coaching Videos
• Analytics and Research Videos

PLUS Product – High Quality, Low Price

PLUS members get the lowest prices on our flagship line of products:

• PlyoCare Sets: $49 per set
• Leather Weighted Balls: $49 per set

• Mini-Trampoline: $49 per trampoline
• Hitting Plyos: $179 for 32

And we have a brand-new line of products for PLUS members only.

• “Good Enough” practice baseballs – flat-seam, premium leather baseballs with small blemishes for $28.80 per dozen
• Get Hot Kit – new tools for getting ready to compete, including a vibrating massage ball
• Many more

We have more items in the works for PLUS members.

We hope you’ll join us.

The post Introducing DrivelinePLUS appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

As a facility predicated on data-driven player development from the beginning, we’ve been fortunate enough to collect data on a wide-variety of athletes ranging in age, skill-level, and programming type. Rather than silo this data internally, we annually publish the results for the majority our summer pitchers and open source the underlying raw data as well.

We hope this approach has allowed coaches, parents, and athletes to draw their own conclusions on the merits of our throwing program, which we feel is far more conducive to an open and honest relationship with the baseball community.

We mention this because in this article, we report on the training outcomes for our Summer Hitting Trainees for the very first-time through the lens of exit velocity (EV) on balls in play (BIP).

Why Exit Velocity?

EV is the preferred metric for evaluating the talent levels of our hitters, because it objectively measures how fast the ball leaves an athlete’s bat. This allows us to filter out any subjective measurements of “hard hits” and/or batted-ball luck contained in “x” statistics such as xwOBA.

Beyond these reasons, EV is also preferred for the following reasons:

•  Batted balls that are hit the hardest have the most optimal outcomes, generally speaking.

• EV is more reliable than other BIP metrics (meaning that it is likely to be more reflective of the talent level of the batter, holding sample size equal).

• EV allows us, when looking at the hardest hit BIP by specific batters, to gain a proxy for peak bat speed or the change in peak bat speed over time.
• Lastly, when EV unexpectedly increases for a given player, he tends to outperform his expected outcomes at the plate over a given season, which will be explained later on.

Limitations of Exit Velocity

While we believe EV is the best metric for evaluating the development of our hitters, for the reasons above, it also comes with several limitations that make it a bit more nuanced and difficult to report on. Consider the following:

• While hitting the ball harder is almost exclusively a net positive in terms of outcome, gaining EV will have a relatively minimal impact for batters who have an attack angle oriented towards the ground.

• EV is less reliable than pitching velocity, meaning that we need a much larger sample to gain a better idea of how a batter improves over time. (Two at-bats worth of pitching velocity contains about as much information as 225 BIPs of EV.)
• Unlike pitching velocity, which is mostly a function of the pitcher’s ability to throw hard, EV is at least somewhat reliant on the difficulty of the pitch to hit and the context of the pitch itself.
• Since EV is more difficult to calculate than pitching velocity, and swings usually occur in quicker succession, more sophisticated collection tools and methods are needed to accumulate a reasonable amount of player-specific data.

To overcome some these hurdles with regards to EV, we’ve made large-scale additions to our hitting assessment, incorporated more “test days” for athletes, and integrated third-party technology into TRAQ in order to seamlessly accrue batted-ball data on a daily basis.

As a result, we were able to track batted balls in a variety of different contexts for over 50 athletes during the summer months. The tables below illustrate the net change in both average and peak EV for our summer athletes (top table includes all athletes; bottom table excludes any athlete staying for less than three weeks) between their initial and final test days at the facility.

A couple things to note when looking at the graphics above:

• All tests/re-tests are done during front-toss, not against a hi-speed pitching machine.
• Switch hitters are separated out by handedness to avoid comparing left- vs. right-handed swings.
• Hitters are tested using both their game bats as well as our Axe Bat weighted bat speed system.
• We prefer to report on peak EV (defined here as the hardest hit batted ball) over average EV because it is a more reliable metric; it most likely better represents the underlying talent level of a given hitter in smaller samples. Basically, a few unlucky mishits can significantly bias average EV downwards when BIP numbers are limited.

• With that said, we also want to help batters avoid mishits whenever possible. So, we find it important to report on both peak and average EV in regard to game-bat performance.

The Results

As shown above, batters improved across the board in EV by 1.5-3.5 mph, regardless of bat type. The largest gains occurred when batters swung their game bats, which is what we primarily try to optimize for to encourage transfer to in-game swings.

In observing peak EV amongst all bat types, batters produced the same peak EV when comparing their game bats with Axe’s End-Loaded and Handle-Loaded bats. However, batters who swung an Underload Bat produced an average of roughly +5 mph on their peak EV when compared to any other bat type.

Beyond just looking at raw averages of EV, the standard deviation of both game-bat-average EV and game-bat-peak EV decreased from initial to exit test, particularly for batters who stayed for three weeks or longer. This indicates that long-term stay athletes were making more consistent contact during re-tests.

Lastly, the average batter who stayed longer than three weeks gained an extra ~1 mph in peak EV when compared to batters who stayed for two weeks or less.

Turning to Results Against the High-Speed Pitching Machine

Beyond just collecting EV data during re-tests, our athletes also have BIP results generated and collected against our high-speed pitching machine. By pulling and analyzing this data, we’re able to apply a more realistic context to any analysis we choose to run on our hitters.

For the scope of this article, we selected BIP data for sessions that could be matched to a playerID from May 1 to August 1. We then calculated the net change in both average EV and peak EV for each athlete with at least four sessions recorded on-site.

Because there is a significant acclimation process for athletes to adjust to our high-speed pitching machine (as shown in the graph below and to the right) and daily performance can fluctuate based on the pitch-type settings of the machine within a given session, we used the following selection process (provided in the table below and to the left) to create estimates for pre- and post-talent levels for hitters training at Driveline.

Once the average EV and peak EV metrics (peak EV is calculated using the 1/8th rule) were calculated for each athlete pre and post training, we were able to find the net improvement of our hitters under a more realistic context.

Based on the numbers above, our summer 2018 athletes gained roughly +6 mph of average EV and about +2.5 mph of peak EV against our pitching machine. Given that the “all athletes” sample, including those who were only in gym for less than three weeks, gained a greater amount of average EV than athletes on-site for three or more weeks, we can reasonably hypothesize that we picked up some beginner gains in athletes who only accumulated data for five sessions or less. However, given that athletes here for more than three weeks gained a similar amount of average EV and a greater amount of peak EV, those beginner gains are likely minimized and do not significantly influence the results.

To visualize the distribution of these changes in EV, we bucketed and smoothed all athlete results by .5 mph increments of peak EV. We also generated a density plot comparing gains in peak and average EV in the space below.

In looking at the distribution table above, we see that 79.43% of our summer athletes reported an increase of at least .5 mph of peak EV in our pre/post peak EV Metric while training on-site, 12.06% of athletes held roughly the same pre/post peak EV metric (within +/- .5 mph) while training on-site, and 8.51% reported a decrease from pre/post peak EV while training on-site.

What do these changes in performance for our athletes equate to on the playing field?

It’s hard to say the exact degree that these gains are fully transferable to in-game performance, given that the athletes within our sample were not facing live pitching due to limitations in sample size. But, given that in-gym athletes face game-like velocity and a variety of different pitches when inside the cage, we believe our BIP metrics are fairly representative of in-game performance. This is evident when you compare the distributions of average and peak EV metrics we’ve obtain against our machine with the expected in-game numbers of our athletes.

While transfer of training varies from athlete to athlete, we feel strongly that our program is designed to promote significant carryover from the performance gains in our facility to performance outcomes on the field.  

What is the value in increasing my EV at the plate?

While several studies have investigated the positive relationship between pitching velocity and performance, many have overlooked the potential net benefit of increasing EV at the plate for a given batter.

To study this a bit more closely, we grabbed Steamer Projection Data for batters during the Statcast era and calculated the net change in both average and peak EV from year to year. In joining these two datasets, we found that batters who outperformed their average EV from the season prior by 1 mph also outperformed their expected wOBA by ~7 points as well.

As shown above, the relationship in improving EV and performance is linear and consistent over multiple years. (To be precise, the simple linear model on the left predicts a 6.7-point change in wOBA for a one-unit change in EV, whereas the “poor man’s regression” on the right predicts a 7.3-point change in wOBA for a one-unit change in EV. The r^2 values are .112 and .8123 respectively. Both are drawn off a sample of 928 MLB players from 2016-2018 who recorded at least 100 BIPs in consecutive years and had a coinciding Steamer Projection.) Of course, one might say that it is obvious that hitting the ball harder on every BIP is going to result in an increase of expected performance, so we repeated this exercise only looking at peak EV (or 1/8th of a player’s BIP) and found the same relationship.

In comparing this to the pitching side of things, we know that 1 additional mph of velocity subtracts ~.25 runs off of a player’s RA9 and that 1 additional mph of EV increases a player’s expected contribution at the dish by about 7 points of wOBA (or about .006 runs per PA). As a result, we can multiply these two numbers by the amount of expected IP / PAs for a respective starter on the mound and in the field to compare the values against one another.

By assuming a season’s worth of IP (150) and PAs (600), we find that a +1 mph gain in EV is worth about ~85% of a +1 mph gain in pitching velocity. As a result, it’s clear that improving either peak or average EV by a non-zero amount can facilitate a significant boost in player production.

Moving forward, we hope to continue achieving positive results for both our on-site and remote athletes. Hitting may have fell behind pitching from a data-driven, developmental perspective, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t time to catch up.

As always, the raw data that accompanies the analysis is available.

MLB exit velocity data accessed via baseballsavant.com

–        Exit velocity graphics use 2018 MLB Statcast data, which includes 114,268 BIP.

–        Reliability graphics used 2015-2018 MLB Statcast data for all batters who have had at least 500 BBE during the Statcast era, giving us a sample of 356 batters.

Steamer Projections courtesy of steamerprojections.com.

wOBA values courtesy of fangraphs.com.

Write-up and analysis for this article was done by Dan Aucoin, the data was mined by Alex Caravan  

The post 2018 Summer Hitting Review appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

The bench press is one of the most widely debated exercises in the world of training baseball players, specifically pitchers. Despite the debate, not only is the bench press part of our assessment process but also some pressing variation is included in almost all of our athletes’ programs, to some extent. Much like weighted balls, the bench press is all about smart programming, proper execution, and the right population. Let’s explore this in more detail.

Benefits of the Bench Press

First, I want to dive into the benefits of the bench press, so let’s begin with the muscles involved. The prime movers in a bench press are the pectoralis major, pectoralis minor, and anterior deltoid, whereas the triceps and serratus anterior work to stabilize the movement. The antagonist muscles are the latissimus dorsi, posterior deltoids, and biceps. The rhomboids help keep the scapula retracted during the movement.

What Does This Mean for Throwing and Mobility?

The latissimus dorsi and pectoralis major are two of the muscles that help accelerate the shoulder. The shoulder internally rotates at a max speeds upwards of 4600 °/s during the throwing movement. The serratus anterior is one of the three muscles that help upwardly rotate the scapula when the shoulder goes into flexion or abduction.

Research has shown that lacking shoulder flexion can put an athlete at a higher risk for injury. If the serratus anterior is weak, it could limit the ability to have sufficient flexion or abduction of the shoulder. The rhomboids are a prime mover in scapula retraction which aids in shoulder horizontal abduction in the delivery, also known as a scap load.

Why Test It?

We test the bench press because it’s a great representation of overall upper-body strength. As far as performance goes, there is a study done by Mário C. Marques, et. al that shows a relationship between bench-press bar speed and throwing velocity in elite handball players.

From an injury-prevention standpoint, because the muscles used in the bench press help accelerate the shoulder, stabilize the scapula, and aid in upward rotation, it’s important to see if those muscles can apply force quickly since the throwing delivery is a very fast movement.

Programming Considerations

What we program for our athletes always depends on their training age, injury history, and movement assessment. There are many progressions and regressions for the bench press, and we want to match the athlete with the most ideal pressing exercise possible.

If an athlete has a previous shoulder injury, we may regress him to a push up or swiss-bar bench press to get him in a more shoulder-friendly position. If an athlete’s assessment shows that he has poor shoulder flexion or abduction, we may regress him to a landmine pressing variation to get him to work on scapular upward rotation directly. If an athlete has a young training age, we may regress him to a dumbbell bench press or dumbbell floor press that have a smaller learning curve.

As far as progressions go, once an athlete has perfected technique and sufficient strength, we can start to work on more dynamic effort and focus on bar speed. We can also add accommodating resistance with chains and/or bands. A few exercises that can be added as progressions are spoto bench press and incline and decline variations. These exercises are great for adding variety while also helping to improve the bench press.

Technical Cues

As said earlier, the problem with bench press is not the exercise itself; rather it’s the execution and generally how it is used in programming. Most people are not very technically sound when it comes to bench press, because it is far more complex than lying on a bench and pushing a barbell.

First, I want to talk the setup. Like most exercises, the setup is crucial; if you don’t start in a good position, you likely won’t move well during the movement. The goals of the setup are to have an arch in your thoracic spine, keep the scapula retracted, and have your feet in a good position to put force into the floor; people forget that the bench press is a full body exercise.

The setup is a bit different for everybody, depending on what feels like the best position to press the weight while protecting the shoulders. To get extension through the thoracic spine, start with the bar at head height and use your feet to drive your body back until the bar is at eye height. Foot position varies depending on body types. Feet can be wide and flat out front wide and flat back in line with the hips or narrow with heels up in back and in line with the hips. To retract the shoulder blades, leverage the rack and push the shoulder blades back and down into retraction.

Execution of the lift starts with the unracking of the bar. It’s important to think of pulling the bar off the rack by using your lats rather than pushing up and losing retraction to bring the bar out. Once the bar is unracked, I like to use the cue of “breaking the bar” or “bending the bar in half” to engage the lats. The eccentric portion of the movement should be similar to a row; thinking of “pulling” the bar to your chest can help with this. This will also help stabilize the muscles that are retracting the shoulder blades.

As long as tension is maintained in the lats, the upper arms should be about 45 degrees to the torso as you lower and press. Pressing the bar will start with leg drive. The biggest mistake made with leg drive is that people often go into hip extension and have their butts come off the bench. To fix this, think of knee extension and drive through the quads instead. From there, think of keeping the muscles in the back tight to avoid going into elbow flare, and imagine pushing yourself away from the bar. The shoulders should remain protracted as the arms lockout at the top of the rep.

Final Thoughts

The bench press is one of the biggest bang-for-your-buck exercises for the upper body. It can be used in hypertrophy and strength phases for beginner athletes looking to increase their strength base. It can be used for dynamic effort with more elite-level athletes looking for an increase in performance. How the exercise is implemented and executed always depends on an athlete’s assessment, training age, injury history as well as personal goals.

This article was written by Lead Strength Trainer Kyle Rogers

The post Bench Press: A Deep Dive with Programming Considerations appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

K-Vest by K-Motion was originally intended for golf instructors since it provides a quick look at a player’s biomechanics and real-time measurements. These are then used to provide a mobile, and effective, biofeedback training tool. As K-Motion became successful in the golf world, it became clear that the technology could be applied to other rotational sports, making K-Baseball the most recent program available in K-Motion’s repertoire.

With the tech revolution in full swing for player development in baseball, K-Vest has become the hot new item for training hitters. It is being implemented at all levels, from private instructors to college and MLB coaches. K-Vest is being implemented in player development by MLB teams as a measure to further eliminate the guesswork when developing elite hitters. With swing metrics and batted-ball data readily available for players (Blast Motion, Rapsodo, and HitTrax, in tech), K-Vest contributes significantly to the development picture by measuring how a player is moving.

K-Vest measures the kinematic sequence of a player along with tracking body positions at various point of the swing. It highlights positions and rotational velocities at heel strike, first move, and contact. With these metrics, we are able to measure the sequence, rotational speed, and pinpoint a hitter’s body position in space.

This article covers how to use and interpret K-Vest metrics, what an efficient sequence looks like, and includes an example of how to train a hitter using K-Vest.

So, what do all of these metrics mean and what role does K-Vest play in developing the complete hitter? Let’s start with the kinematic sequence and the efficiency report generated after a swing is measured.

A Closer Look at Kinematic Sequence

The efficiency report is based on the measurements taken during a player’s swing. A graph is produced that tracks the rotational speeds of each swing segment, along with the time at which each segment reaches its peak velocity. K-Vest uses four sensors to measure the rotational velocities of the hip, torso, lead arm, and bottom hand. The sensors are placed on the tailbone, top of the thoracic spine, above the elbow on the lead arm, and back of the lead hand.

Think of the kinetic chain as simply transferring energy and speed from the ground up by accelerating and decelerating each segment of the swing, ultimately transferring energy into the barrel of the bat. K-Vest is able to track this transfer of energy by measuring the peak rotational velocities and the manner in which they accelerate and decelerate in order to propel the next segment of the chain forward.

In the graph displayed on the efficiency report, we can see four different colored lines that represent the speed trajectories for each segment of the swing. The red line represents the hips; green, the torso; blue, the lead arm; and brown, the hand. (It is important to distinguish the last segment as hand speed rather than bat speed, keeping in mind that K-Vest measures kinematics rather than bat motion.)

Looking at the Efficiency Chart

Let’s look at what an efficient kinematic sequence looks like according to K-Vest. This sets us up to look at an example graph of a trainee, begin to make a swing diagnosis, and generate a plan for training.

The first objective when looking at an efficiency graph is to determine whether or not the swing is in the correct sequence. An efficient swing has the pelvis, torso, lead arm, and hands reaching peak rotational velocities, in that order. It is important to understand, especially when pairing to video, that it is not simply the order in which each segment moves; rather, it’s the order in which they reach their peak velocity. The pelvis will reach its peak first, as showcased by the red trajectory reaching its peak height just after first move is initiated. The torso will go next, with the green trajectory peaking closer to contact. The lead arm will peak shortly after with the blue trajectory, reaching its peak a little closer to contact. Finally, the hand will conclude the sequence, with the brown trajectory peaking at or just before contact.

Once the sequence is evaluated, the report provides the peak speeds for each segment, along with the pro ranges for speed to provide some context when looking at a hitter’s rotational velocities. The pro ranges for pelvis rotation are between 490 and 760 degrees per second; torso rotation, between 760-1150; lead arm rotation, between 970-1360; and hand rotation, between 1530-2230. The hitter’s swing should certainly fall in these ranges, ideally at the higher end of each range.

Once the hitter’s speed is evaluated and compared to pro ranges, then the manner in which each segment reaches those speeds can be analyzed.

As mentioned, the kinematic sequence involves each segment accelerating and decelerating, and, therefore, propelling the next phase of the swing into acceleration. The trajectories of each segment on the graph can provide insight into the quality of the acceleration/deceleration process. In the efficient example, each trajectory accelerates and decelerates quickly and efficiently as the trajectories rise and fall at very steep and concise angles. An inefficient graph would showcase trajectories that do not rise and fall smoothly, with curved or flat lines leading up to or after peak speed.

The last metric the efficiency graph provides is speed gain. Speed gain is simply one segment of the sequence divided by the previous segment, and it can further evaluate the quality of the hitter’s sequence. The efficiency graph will provide three numbers for speed gain (torso/pelvis, lead arm/torso, and hand/lead arm). What speed gain is able to provide is a picture of how each segment transitions speed to the next segment of the swing. The pro range for speed gain is between 1.3 and 1.6, and an efficient swing would showcase a speed gain roughly the same throughout the swing. For example, an efficient swing would read a 1.6 speed gain throughout all three transitions.

An Example of How to Train Hitters Using K-Vest

Once the metrics from the efficiency graph can be read proficiently, swing strengths and weaknesses start to stand out. Knowledge on a hitter’s rotational velocities and swing sequence can be the missing link for a coach who is armed with other data, video, or from simply the eye test of watching a hitter take consistent at-bats.

For example, if you are wondering why a strong and physically capable hitter has a low average exit velocity or why a hitter struggles to pull the ball in the air, an out-of-sequence segment or low rotational speed could clear things up and provide a solution.

Understanding the kinematic sequence and how to read a K-Vest efficiency graph will provide the missing link when it comes to movement and is especially effective with combined with other tools such as bat sensors and video.

Let’s walk through an example of how to train a hitter by implementing a K-Vest efficiency graph.

This particular hitter looks out of sequence; the lead arm out paces the torso and reaches peak rotational velocity second, rather than third. There are many potential reasons for the lead arm reaching peak velocity second, but it seems that low torso speed could be the source of the problem.

The torso speed in this particular graph registers 655 degrees per second, which is more than a hundred degrees per second away from the low end of the pro averages. The hip speed is in range but at the very low end, and the graph shows very little separation between torso peak speed and hip peak speed. This should be a red flag as something that a coach needs address.

This is where other tools such as batted ball data, mobility screens, and blast data can be matched with the K-Vest to pinpoint issues in the swing. For example, this particular hitter struggles with depth in the swing and driving the ball through the middle of the field, according to Hit Trax and Blast Motion. This data leads to the conclusion that the lack of disassociation inhibits swing depth and to a push and late flip of the barrel, which results in great speed from arm to hand but a very small window in order to hit the ball hard. (This is a simple example, but this type of situation is where coaching skill comes into play. By this I mean there are many ways to interpret data, but understanding how to pair the data to the player is up to the coach!)

There are many ways to attack these issues: constraint drills done in the cage, strength training, med ball throws, and mobility drills, to name a few. This player in particular would receive a menu of movement prep drills, including various med ball throws meant to improve sequencing, band swings, and constraint drills done in the cage to increase speed and improve hip/shoulder separation. My TPI and OnBaseU are a tremendous resource when it comes to increasing hip/shoulder separation and disassociation. They provide an extensive library of drills for mobility, disassociation and other swing traits.

Conclusion

The K-Vest is a game changer when it comes to hitting development. It is one of the most actionable tools for measuring and describing movement in the swing. Acquiring the skill of interpreting the metrics and graphs that K-Vest has to offer can often become the missing link when developing a hitter or identifying movement strengths and deficiencies. Now, there is a lot of unknown when it comes to K-Vest, but with further data collection, there are some exciting possibilities when it comes to development and finding out what makes the complete hitter.

This article was written by Driveline Hitting Trainer Max Dutto

The post An Introduction to K-Vest appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

We have written about what exactly velocity-based training is and how to broadly go about implementing that, but we wanted to go a bit more in-depth about the way many ways we use velocity-based training with our athletes at Driveline Baseball.

Assessment

During our strength assessment, we have athletes perform three sets of back squats, trap bar deadlifts, and barbell bench press. For each, we attach a Linear Displacement Transducer Device (currently a Tendo unit while we test our VBT unit) to the bar to determine the average bar velocities in meters per second. We use an algorithm to determine an estimated elite one-rep max based on their height and weight in order to determine how much weight each athlete will lift. The algorithm is roughly based on a two times body-weight squat, two and half times body-weight deadlift, and one and a half times body-weight bench press. We say roughly because a 225-pound athlete will have a much different perceived elite one-rep max than a 160-pound athlete, and a 6’ 6” inch athlete will have a much more difficult time squatting to depth than a 5’ 7” athlete. Once we determine that estimated one-rep max, we then test at 30%, 40%, and 50% of that number.

The velocities at these numbers give us a few different pieces of information that help us individualize our programs. First, there is a pass/fail aspect to the assessment. We want each rep to fall at or above certain velocity ranges. For example, the 30% rep should be >1.3 m/s, the 40% rep should be between 1.0 and 1.15m/s, and the 50% rep should be between 0.85 and 1.0 m/s.

Next, the spreads between the numbers will help us form a force-velocity profile for each athlete. For example, a strength-based athlete will perform the 50% rep better than the 30% rep, and a speed-based athlete may better perform the 30% or 40% rep than the 50% rep.

Percentage-based programming is the last piece of information we can use the velocities for. Because the weights that we test are relatively light and a much safer alternative to max testing, we can use the velocities to calculate a projected one-rep max. For example, 0.8 m/s is 60% of an athlete’s daily one-rep max—yes, a one-rep max can fluctuate based on the day. But, if an athlete moves 225 pounds at ~0.8 m/s, we can calculate that his projected one-rep max is 375 pounds on that given exercise. We can then take that information and prescribe sets of four reps at 70% of his one rep max if he is in a strength phase.

Programming for Strength and Power

While we primarily use velocity-based training for speed-based work, it can be a great tool when high bar velocities are not the training goal.

Earlier, we discussed how to use the assessment velocity numbers to prescribe weights for percentage-based programs, as well as how a projected one-rep max can fluctuate based on the day. One way to work around these factors and auto-regulate the on-the-bar load is to have feedback of bar velocity.

We know strength as 70-90%, for three to five sets of four to eight reps. If we compare this to the velocity-based training continuum, we see that falls in the accelerative strength velocity ranges of 0.5-0.75 m/s.

With that information, we could program three to five sets of four to eight reps and tell the athlete to find a weight that he can move all of the prescribed reps within that speed range. This will help autoregulate the load for him. On a day that the athlete is feeling more fatigued than usual, rather than forcing him to add 5-10 pounds to the bar and crushing them, we stay within the speed range and get the desired stimulus.

For power, we know that is three to five sets of two to five reps at 75-95% of a one-rep max. Because those percentages fall within both absolute strength and accelerative strength, I might have this athlete perform his prescribed sets and reps at a weight that he can move between 0.3 and 0.6 m/s.

Programming for High Velocity Ranges

The first speed range to touch on is strength/speed. Strength/speed is defined as moving a moderately heavy weight as fast as possible. The loads here range anywhere from 50 to 60% of a one-rep max and 0.75 and 1.0 m/s.

Speed/strength, on the other hand, is defined with speed as the first priority and strength as the second. In other words, it uses lighter loads at faster velocities. The loads here range from 30 to 40% of a one-rep max and velocities from 1.0 to 1.3 m/s.

An important note on training for speed/strength is that when performing the three main lifts of squat, deadlift, and bench press, the range of motion is too short to perform at velocities above 1.0 m/s. To make up for this, we recommend adding accommodating resistance in bands or chains to the bar. This allows the athlete to focus on accelerating the bar at high velocities without having to decelerate the bar as much at the top of the lift.

Starting strength is the last velocity range on the velocity-based training continuum. When training for starting strength, the load is 30% or less of a one-rep max, and it should be moved above 1.3 m/s. Starting strength is the ability to rapidly overcome inertia from a dead stop. The three main lifts should not be trained above 1.3 m/s. If you were to prescribe Olympic lifts, this would be the velocity range to train them in. At Driveline, we use Trap Bar Jumps at 1.3 m/s and above because research has shown that power output is similar and there is far less risk on athletes’ wrists and shoulders. They’re also easier to measure for power output due to a consistent bar path.

As far as sets and reps go for training in the speed ranges, we typically prescribe six sets of two reps. While the load is relatively light, the athlete should try to move the bar as fast as possible, which makes it a max-effort exercise. We know that when training for max power, the work rest ratio is 1:12, so an exercise lasting 5-10 seconds using the phosphagen energy system should have a rest period of 60 seconds.

Because of the shorter rest period, there is also a large work-capacity component to training in the speed-velocity ranges. This can result in athletes being better conditioned for the sport of baseball since actions occur roughly every 30 seconds in a baseball game.

How to Determine What Velocity Range to Prescribe

Earlier, we talked about how we can use velocities from the assessment to create a force velocity curve and figure out if an athlete is more strength-based or more speed-based. How an athlete profiles plays a huge role in how we program for them.

Here is an example of an athlete who profiles as more speed-based than strength-based. We can see that his 30% rep is at 1.37 m/s, which is above the 1.3 m/s number we are looking for, and his 50% rep is slightly below the 0.85-1.0 m/s range we are looking for. Some might see this and program maximum-strength work because it could be this athlete’s biggest room for adaptation. However, if we lose strength in the process of addressing a weakness, we are not improving this athlete. Because this athlete profiles as more speed-based, it may be disadvantageous for this athlete to spend too much time doing maximum-strength work and more beneficial for him to focus on improving his speed.

This example shows an athlete who is above what we are looking for on all three of his reps but likely profiles a bit more as strength-based by looking at how high his 50% rep is and the small spread between his 30% rep and 50% rep. Because he is well above on all three of his reps, he likely has reached a point of diminishing returns when it comes to maximum-strength work; taking his back squat from a projected one rep max of 405 to 500 is likely not the limiting factor in developing velocity.

With that being said, because this athlete is so strength-based, he may struggle when trying to perform speed work. An option for him would be to perform exercises in high velocity ranges with accommodating resistance in order to help him create the extra tension needed to move weight at high velocities.

In the final example, we can see that this athlete not only falls below the velocity ranges on all three reps, but also his spread is very short between all three reps. This tells us that the athlete lacks not only the ability to apply force but also to apply force quickly.

Because of that, we might do a more linear periodization with this athlete and spend some time doing strength work (0.5-0.75 m/s) until he lifts a certain number in that velocity range. Once the predetermined number has been hit, he can then move into an absolute strength block (0.3-0.6 m/s).

Once the athlete’s strength is sufficient, high velocity speed work can be prescribed.

Final Thoughts

Many people think of velocity-based training as a high velocity training protocol only, but

VBT is a great tool that can be used for assessment protocols, autoregulation during training blocks, and as a modality for elite athletes who have reached a point of diminishing returns with their maximum strength numbers. That point of diminishing returns will always be on a case-by-case basis, and that’s what makes test/retest periods so vital to writing a successful program.

This article was written by High Performance coach Kyle Rogers

The post Velocity-Based Training: Programming Considerations appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

What Is Eccentric Overload?

Dr. John P. Wagle defines accentuated eccentric loading as eccentric loads in excess of the concentric prescription of movements that require coupled eccentric and concentric action while creating minimal interruption to the natural mechanics of the selected exercise. In other words, it is lifting a heavier weight during the eccentric phase instead of the concentric phase of the exercise, without allowing the extra load on the eccentric phase impact the technique of the lift.

Since muscles are approximately 40% stronger during eccentric contractions than during concentric contractions, this means that you can load greater than 100% of your one-rep max for the eccentric phase. Eccentric strength is also critical for many actions involved in sports.

Benefits of Eccentric Overload

The goal of accentuated eccentric loading is to achieve potentiation. Potentiation is the increase in strength of nerve impulses along pathways that have been used previously, either short-term or long-term. In other words, we want to increase the eccentric rate of force development.

One benefit of the eccentric muscle action is force absorption, which plays a huge role in any change of direction. For example, as the lead foot makes contact with the ground during the pitching delivery, the body has to absorb the force before the concentric impulse.

Another benefit of eccentric muscle action is elastic spring function utilizing the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC). The SSC can be defined as an active stretch (eccentric contraction) of a muscle followed by an immediate shortening (concentric contraction) of that same muscle. In the pitching delivery, the SSC is used during scapular load to unload. The SSC also plays a huge role in sprinting and jumping, and, if you’re interested, we’ve also written more about the SSC in pitching mechanics.

Some other benefits of accentuated eccentric loading include the following: a larger hormonal response that can lead to higher testosterone levels post-training, an increase in cross-sectional area of type IIx muscle fibers, potentially a work capacity benefit, and an opportunity for athletes to retain and build max strength as higher bar velocities to focus on during velocity-based training.  

Programming Considerations

The two main methods of accentuated eccentric loading are supramaximal loading, or more than a one-rep max, and submaximal loading, or less than a one-rep max. Supramaximal loads are best for athletes looking to increase their eccentric rate of force development. This method can be used for increasing strength or to maintain strength while focusing on bar velocity. When using to increase strength, the eccentric load can be ~105% of a one-rep max, whereas the concentric load can be 70-90% of a one-rep max. Research shows that the eccentric rate of force development stays increased for up to two reps after the weight is released. Because of this, sets should be performed as clusters. For example, you could perform one set of two to three reps, rest for 10-15 seconds, put the weight releasers back on back, and then perform two to three more reps.

When the focus shifts to speed work, the eccentric load can be ~105% of a one-rep max, and the concentric load can be 40-60% of a one-rep max. Bar-speed analyzing devices can also be used to determine the load for the concentric based on the speed range desired.

Submaximal eccentric loading is another method that can be used for accentuated eccentric loading. This is where both the eccentric and concentric loads are less than your one-rep max, but the eccentric load is still larger than the eccentric load. This method is best for athletes looking to increase concentric impulse or the speed at which they can switch from an eccentric to concentric movement.

When using submaximal loads, the focus should be on bar velocity. An important detail when deciding what loads to use for the eccentric and concentric phase of the lift is that the eccentric load needs to exceed at least 30% difference from the concentric load to achieve potentiation.

Other Options

If you don’t have access to weight releasers, other methods to consider include dumbbells, bands, and manual removal.

Dumbbells are a great option for exercises like jumping. Determine what 130% of an athlete’s body weight is, and have him hold dumbbells that make his total weight 130%. For example, 130% of 200 lb. is 260 lb., therefore a 200 lb. athlete would need to hold 30 lb. dumbbells in each hand. When going into the countermovement of a jump, drop the weights before going into the concentric phase of the jump. These can be paired with a heavy lower-body exercise for post-activation potentiation or paired with an exercise when bar velocity is the focus.

Bands can be used for accommodating resistance for exercises like squat, bench, and deadlift. While this is not true eccentric overload, the resistance will be heaviest at the beginning of the eccentric phase and lightest at the beginning of the concentric phase.

Adding tools like bands, med balls, and dumbbells to jumping variations are great for adding extra tension to the movement. This will help an athlete tap into the slow stretch-shortening cycle and give an athlete coming out of a strength phase and going into a speed phase more time to develop force.

When to Program

When prescribing accentuated eccentric loading, it is important to take training economy into consideration. The eccentric phase of an exercise does the most damage to muscle fibers and is often what causes delayed onset muscle soreness. Therefore, when we are overloading or accentuating that phase of the exercise, it can crush an athlete.

We primarily prescribe eccentric overload to athletes during the offseason when their skill-specific training volume is low to moderate. It can be used during velocity or high intensity training phases, but volume should be modified to avoid overtraining. We would not recommend performing accentuated eccentric loading in-season.

Final Thoughts

Accentuated eccentric loading can be a great tool for advanced athletes, and research has shown that it has some decent benefits: an improved ability to absorb force; an increase in elastic spring for the stretch-shortening cycle, allow athletes to maintain strength as higher velocities become the emphasis; and hormonal and neural benefits as well. Accentuated eccentric loading can be used with supramaximal and submaximal loads and bands and dumbbells can be used if weight releasers are unavailable.

This article was written by High Performance coach Kyle Rogers

The post Phasic Loading: Eccentric Overload Programming Considerations appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

Driveline began as a facility that tracked athlete data by hand. Athletes were largely responsible for recording their own data, keeping their own sheets, and asking for new ones when they ran out of space. For a few years, this worked. While the process was inefficient, we were able to record how our athletes were improving.

As Driveline grew, we moved from recording information on sheets of paper to spreadsheets. We hired trainers and had them record data on athletes. Although this was an improvement, spreadsheets do not scale well. As we increased the number of athletes at our facility and the scope of the data we recorded, our spreadsheets became increasingly difficult to manage.

We ran into two problems. First, it had become time consuming for trainers to create schedules of what each athlete would do. We needed to figure out a way to schedule athletes so they knew what workout to do, but also so our trainers knew what the gym would look like on any given day.

Second, we needed an efficient way to track our athletes’ performance. We wanted to do this transparently, showing where athletes improved, and access how well we were training our athletes.

These two problems led us to create TRAQ, the only place that allows you to schedule your athletes, record their training data, and provide a transparent interface for everyone.

TRAQ…What Is It?

TRAQ is what we use everyday to keep tabs on our athletes and collect data. It is also available to any other facility who wants to run a data driven facility.

The Basics

TRAQ is designed to give trainers everything they need to run their facility from a data driven perspective. Trainers and coaches are allowed to write notes to each other, either what worked with a specific athlete, or whether it’s raining outside and the schedule needs to change. They are also able to write messages to athletes, with our new chat feature. Meaning coaches and players can have discussions on training and performance in the same place their progress is tracked.

We’ve also given coaches better resources to see how much programming they have left and how many athletes are scheduled for a certain type of workout each day. Enabling a coach to better plan who needs to be where.

At Driveline, we use this to make sure our trainers are scheduled to assess athletes, record velocities, take an athlete through a retest, or record live at-bat results.  

Our main dashboard also contains areas where you can see if an athlete didn’t complete a piece of his/her workout and what the best velocities were the previous day. This gives trainers a pretty good snapshot of what happened the previous day.

As mentioned above, one of the most recent features that we have added into TRAQ is a direct athlete-to-trainer messaging feature. Every message in TRAQ is sent to both the website chat and the athlete/trainer’s assigned email address that is used in the creation of the account. Using this feature, trainers and athletes can go directly from their emails into TRAQ to respond to messages.

Managing Athletes

After viewing the dashboard, most trainers are going to be spending their time managing their athletes. The Manage Athletes tab shows every athlete at your facility. Trainers are able to search for any athlete at their facility, as well as sort their athletes by program (Pitching, Hitting, Pitching/Hitting), status (On-Site, Remote, Inactive), sub-status (Good, Low Intent, Shutdown), and level (Youth, High School, all the way to Affiliate). This makes it very easy to find groups of athletes so that it is easier to assign workouts.

Once a trainer has clicked onto a specific athlete, they are taken to the athlete’s page. This contains the athlete’s personal information (height, weight, age, e-mail) and a graph with peak velocities for mound velocity, walking windups with each ball, and pulldown throws.

Below is the Day Plan. This shows all of the workouts that an athlete has scheduled for the coming month. Pitching workouts, hitting, strength, and warm ups are all color coordinated to make them stand out.

Athletes and trainers are then able to click on each workout in the calendar to see what they are scheduled to do for that day.

Exercises make up workouts; each row in a workout represents an exercise. Each of our workouts also contains a workout video. There are also short videos that our trainers have made so that the athlete understands what the point of the workout is. This can include the desired intent, the number of reps, and the mindset that goes into each workout. Our trainers require athletes to watch these videos if they are new to the program, but these videos can still be relevant to those familiar with each Driveline workout. The far-right corner has “Input Data.” This means that we want to record data on that specific exercise.

Both athletes and trainers have the ability to input data on the athlete’s profile. Certain inputs (Wellness Questionnaire) are best filled out by the athlete, whereas other inputs (PlyoCare Velocity, Mound Velocity) are best filled out by trainers.

Once an athlete’s data has been entered or saved, it will appear in the Tracking Sheets.

Athletes and trainers are able to view exactly the same data at exactly the same time. This makes for total transparency between the trainer and the athlete and gives direct feedback as to whether or not the athlete is improving with details.

Tracking Sheet Inputs and Assessments

Our inputs include the Wellness Questionnaire, PlyoCare Velocity, Mound Velocity, Pulldowns, Machine Hitting Input (shown above), Front Toss Testing Hitting, Bullpen, Live ABs as well as others.

Similar to our programming, inputs are completely customizable, so if any of them are not formatted in a way that your facility likes, you can customize each. 

The input above allows our athletes to record each pitch that they throw in a Live At-Bat session (a game, scrimmage, live batting practice, etc.). The purpose of this input is to record as much information as the athlete can. An athlete can have a coach/trainer, teammate, friend, parent fill this out while they are pitching. If they only have access to the hitter’s hand, the count, the pitch type, and the outcomes, that is fine. What you deem important and want to record is up to you. If you can think of an input and it fits on a spreadsheet, we have the capability to make it in TRAQ.

Similarly, assessments are also completely customizable. Typically, assessments and inputs differ in the frequency in which they are done. If you enter data once a month or more, an input is typically better suited. If you enter data once a month or a couple of times a year, then an assessment is probably better. At Driveline, we run two standard assessments in TRAQ: our Movement Screening and our Strength Assessment. If your facility runs any assessments, we can add those into TRAQ.

Workouts and Templates

All facilities that sign up for TRAQ get all our base workouts and inputs. These are templates that you can find in Hacking the Kinetic Chain as well as hitting and basic strength programming.

But, this programming is entirely flexible to what a coach wants to create for their athletes. If you base your programs off of HTKC, great, just drag each workout to the desired day, and your athletes will have that workout assigned.

If you want to tweak anything from Driveline’s base workouts, you can clone the workout and keep the parts of the workout that you want and add in what you want to include.

If you do not want to use any of Driveline’s programming, that’s totally fine too; you can create your own customized workouts.

While Driveline created the software, it is truly for the coach who wants to be data driven and find out what works, whether you use weighted balls or weighted towel drills in training.

For trainers and coaches, we understand that trying to write schedules for athletes can be challenging. That is why TRAQ has the ability to create workout templates. Templates are a collection of workouts organized so that trainers can write out a week, two-week, month, or longer templates.

For example a college starter template may look something like this:

• For the Friday night starter, a trainer/coach assigns Live ABs (or Game).
• Saturday is a Recovery Day.
• Sunday is an Off Day
• Monday is Mound Blend B
• Tuesday is Recovery
• Wednesday is Hybrid B
• Thursday is Recovery.

To assign this week of workouts, all a trainer has to do is drop the template onto Friday. To assign the week-long schedule to the Saturday starter, the trainer just has to drag the template onto Saturday instead of Friday. This way, a trainer/coach can write a template for their weekend starters, late-inning relievers, rest of staff, and redshirt players. That’s 4 templates to program an entire week. Rather than writing out 15-week-long schedules, a trainer/coach can write out 4 templates and assign one to all of their pitchers and make any minor adjustments from there.

Media

In addition to the data that you can record and make accessible for your athletes, you can also upload videos of your athletes and record them in the Media tab.

This allows for easy sharing of drills or other videos between coaches and players. We use the videos during assessments and retests to see how an athlete’s movements have changed, along with monitoring athletes who train remotely. While not every facility trains athletes remotely, we all know that athletes do need to travel at times.

If an athlete is away from your facility for a while, you can assign the athlete a series of workouts and then have the athlete upload a video of each drill. If you leave a place to input data, you can see that the athlete completed the workout, watch the videos that they put in the Media tab, and then leave detailed notes inside his/her workout that would then show up in the Tracking Sheets.

Both athletes and trainers can add videos and long-form documents into TRAQ, as it works very similarly to how you would attach something to an email.

Integrations and Platforms: Blast and Diamond Kinetics

One of our newest features is the ability to take baseball-technology products and integrate them into TRAQ. This allows TRAQ to act as a central hub for viewing all information about an athlete.

Our first product integration was Blast. To upload an athlete’s Blast data into TRAQ, all you have to do is download your Team Report from Blast, go to an athlete’s TRAQ account, and load in the Blast data for each athlete with a single click. Once your athletes’ data has been entered into TRAQ, you can generate custom reports to see each day that you have recorded swings using Blast.

Each row of data represents one day of Blast Usage, with summary metrics for the minimum, average, and maximum for the relevant Blast metrics.

Diamond Kinetics is an even simpler integration into TRAQ; you can upload your Pitch Tracker and Swing Tracker data directly into TRAQ. All you have to do is link your Diamond Kinetics profile to your TRAQ profile, and then complete a Pitch Tracker bullpen or Swing Tracker session. Once you are finished using Diamond Kinetics for the day, just click the “sync” button on your profile, and it will load into TRAQ. If you do not click “sync” during the day, the data uploads at the end of each day.

What TRAQ Costs

For high schools and colleges, we charge a rate of $1,999 per year. For facilities, we charge based on the number of active athletes that the facility has each month. If your facility has 1-10 athletes, TRAQ is $99 a month; 11-20 athletes, $199; 21-60 athletes, $299; 61-200 athletes, $399; and if have are over 200 athletes, contact us.

What’s Coming

Currently, TRAQ is in iteration 20. In the near future, we plan to add the following:

• Our next iteration will add the ability to schedule more than 1 athlete (up to all) at a time. This means that you can group your athletes and assign them the same workout without having to go into each athlete’s profile. This will work great for schools and facilities that do a lot of group workouts
• HitTrax integration. This will iteration will be similar to the Diamond Kinetics integration.
• Rapsodo (Pitching and Hitting) integration. This will look similar to the Blast Integration.
• Customizable dashboards for coaches/trainers to view relevant athlete metrics.
• Offer an add-on for the ability to have our data scientist set up regular data dumps for facilities so that they can run their own external analysis. Our data scientist will also run an analysis for a facility if requested by the facility.

If you would like to get a more in-depth look at TRAQ, go to drivelinebaseball.com/traq and fill out our questionnaire at the bottom of the page.  Once you fill that out, our customer service team will get back to you and you can schedule a demo to see TRAQ in action.

This article was written by Max Engelbrekt and edited by Michael O’Connell

The post Why We Created TRAQ appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

In line with Driveline’s constant thirst for knowledge and curiosity, its hitting staff was recently in attendance for the Titleist Performance Institute’s first-ever OnBaseU certification program: a program dedicated to studying how baseball and softball athletes move and how to assess players’ movement capabilities. Dr. Greg Rose, one of the founding fathers of TPI,  was one of the main speakers. There were many things that stuck out from the OnBaseU seminar, but the two are the focus for this article:

Dr. Rose’s four must-haves for any professional golfer

• Swing coach
• Strength coach
• Physical therapist
• Equipment expert

Dr. Rose’s three things that cause inefficiency problems:

• Mechanics
• Physical limitations
• Equipment

All of these must-haves and inefficiencies are addressed in baseball and in golf, but one in particular seems to have been side lined in hitting: a player’s equipment.

There’s an interesting dichotomy between golf and baseball in how equipment is valued and measured. Golf has its equipment down to a science (literally), but the relationship between hitters and their bats still seems to be very intuitive. Most guys go by feel—even big leaguers.

You’ll hear stories of Brock Holt, George Springer, Josh Reddick, and Sandy Leon all swinging Mookie Betts’s Axe Bat model MB50 during the playoffs. Mookie is listed at 5’ 9’’; Springer, 6’ 3’’. It’s unlikely that these two athletes would have the exact same specifications for the “perfect bat,” but this is baseball, and we’re just now getting around to measuring stuff. A world-class athlete’s intuition is something to be valued, but without taking objective measurements, we’ll never know for sure, nor will we know if there are adjustments that should be made.

Golf, however, is quite the opposite. When a serious golfer is looking to purchase a new set of clubs, the first thing he’ll do is go through a club fitting. There are a lot of different metrics, variables, and measurements that go into this process. Here’s a quick rundown of everything your club fitter will measure before you even take a swing:

• Length from top of wrist to tip of middle finger
• Hand size from bottom of palm to tip of middle finger
• Athlete’s height
• Length of athlete’s current clubs

Once these baseline measurements are taken, you get to start taking some swings. The following are some of the relevant swing and ball-flight metrics taken into account during a club fitting:

• Club head speed (bat speed, and most important): This metric will determine what kind of shaft best fits your swing: regular, stiff, or extra stiff. Similar to bat speed, club head speed rules all, and generally, the more an athlete has, the better.
• Ball Speed (exit velocity): The rate, in mph, in which the ball comes off the club head.
• Spin Rate: Generally, a golfer will want to keep his spin rate of all of his tee shots (if the goal is to maximize distance) between 2200 and 2500 rpm. In baseball, there’s very little we know currently about a hitter’s batted ball spin characteristics and how much that effects ball flight.
• Launch Angle: Similar to baseball, the athlete is going to want to optimize his launch angle according to the club head/ball speed he’s capable of producing. For golfers with elite club head speed (roughly 115+), they’re looking to stay within a desired launch angle between 12 and 15 degrees, with all other variables remaining constant.
• Distance and Carry: Distance refers to how far you are hitting the ball, and carry refers to how far it carries, or how much roll you are getting.
• Descent Angle: The angle at which the ball falls to the ground is the descent angle. If the angle is too steep, you lose distance and roll; too flat, and you’re sacrificing carry.  

For any serious golfer, the first step in the process of buying new clubs is to go through a proper fitting. Being an avid golfer myself, I decided to go through this process to gain a better understanding of what all is entailed in the process. I went into this particularly curious as to how much of a difference a “fitted” driver would make versus one off the rack.

Similar to baseball, the quality of your respective weapon of choice can make a big difference in how well you’re able to strike the ball, minimize your mishits, and optimize launch and descent angle for maximum carry and roll. A Rawlings Big Stick you scoop up from your local academy isn’t nearly as high of quality compared to the wood you’ll see in a big league clubhouse—this much is obvious. But exactly how much of a difference can the proper equipment make?

Below are a couple of basic tables detailing some swings that were taken with an off-the-rack driver versus a “fitted” driver:

Looking at these findings, these were the changes in the most relevant and relatable metrics:

• An increase of 1.67 mph of average club head speed
• An increase of 2.42 mph of average ball speed
• An increase of 18.57 average yards of carry
• An increase of 22.03 average yards of total distance

Based at these results, the splits are pretty staggering. If you asked any golfer if he’d like to add an average of over 22 yards to his drive, it’s likely that 100% of them would resoundingly reply “Yes!”

This raises the question: Why is there no bat-fitting process for each individual hitter?

Driveline Baseball, being the ever-curious think tank that it is, has been began developing a process for this to test its validity. While not the same as golf and without the many ways to manipulate the bat as a golf club, the end goal is still the same: swing the bat faster and more efficiently, and hit the ball harder and farther.

Bat Fitting for Baseball

Here’s a breakdown of the process:

We set up each athlete with a Blast Motion Sensor to collect relevant swing metrics and test them with three different types of knobs: a traditional circular handle, a standard Axe Bat handle, and Axe Bat’s new ball-joint handle, which is a smaller, hybrid knob in between a traditional circular knob and the standard Axe Bat handle.

Initially, we run each athlete through at least twenty swings with each handle, collecting relevant swing and batted-ball metrics from the Blast Motion Sensor connected to each bat. Bat speed plays at all levels and is mainly what we’re after, but other metrics like peak hand speed, on plane percentage, and attack angle are also taken into consideration.

Once we determine which knob each individual athlete swings the fastest, we’ll then test the athlete with that particular handle, but with two different weight distributions: balanced and barrel-loaded.

Below is a sample report comparing swing metrics of an athlete’s standard game bat to the fitted bat of one of our on-site hitting trainees:

Looking at these findings, we can see when this athlete swings a fitted bat, he produces:

• An increased average bat speed of 3.1 mph
• An increased peak bat speed of 1.8 mph
• An increased average power generation of .34 kw
• An increased average body rotation of 5%

Now, we’re still in the infancy of this project, and we’ll begin to test for different variables like alloy vs composite, one-piece vs two-piece, handle circumference, etc., but out of the 17 athletes that we’ve fitted so far, our athletes’ “fitted bats” produced an average increased bat speed of 2.55 mph, as measured by our Blast sensor. The sample size is still a bit small, but we are excited to keep collecting data. We also expect to learn more once we are able to get longer term test and retest data from our athletes.

We are excited to continue this testing outside of Driveline with our Mobile Bat Fitting and Swing Analysis events throughout the country. We’ll be in Houston, TX, at Vendetta Sports Academy December 15-16th, the Dallas-Fort Worth area at the RockerB Ranch January 18-20th, and in Omaha, Nebraska, at Dynamic Velocity February 16-17th to continue collecting data as well as providing all athletes a swing analysis and batted-ball profile report at the end of each event.

This article was written by Lead of Bat Fitting Collin Hetzler

The post Lessons from Golf: Introducing Bat Fitting appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

We recently had an article published on a six-week training program that took place at Driveline.

The research paper compared two snapshots, six weeks apart, to see what changes (if any) occurred in the pitchers that participated. The purpose of the study was the evaluate the effects of a six-week training period. It’s important to note that the study looked at the whole program, not just weighted-ball throws.

We wanted to see what effects weighted implements (weighted balls and plyos), manual therapy, weight lifting, and other modalities may or may not have on shoulder external rotation, elbow valgus stress, pitching velocity, kinematics, and kinetics.

For this blog post, we summarize the main findings into sections on biomechanics, range of motion, and velocity.

Disclaimer: Before we move further, the research paper is not the “Driveline is great, always, under any circumstances forever and always” paper. That is not the function of research papers in general, nor is it the function of this paper. Lastly, research is an ongoing and ever-changing process. Therefore, be wary of anyone who claims that a single paper proves a wide-ranging set of things, including this one.

Biomechanics

By comparing the entire group of 17 pitchers, we found four biomechanical parameters significantly changed:

• Internal rotational velocity increased.
• Shoulder abduction was lower.
• The shoulder was less externally rotated at ball release.
• Shoulder adduction torque was higher.

If we look at the pitchers in two groups, those that gained velocity and those that didn’t, there is not a significant increase in elbow-valgus stress. The elbow-torque values that were seen in this study were also found to be in a similar range to previous studies.

None of the metrics measured at stride-foot contact were found to be different when comparing pre and post analysis.

It’s been speculated before that weighted balls work by increasing arm speed, which is more technically referred to as internal rotation and elbow extension in biomechanics. The entire group did see an increase in internal rotational velocity, but not ball velocity. But if we look specifically at the velocity-increase group, there was a significant increase in both max-internal rotation and elbow-extension velocity. This suggests that there is likely a link between an increase in ball velocity and increase in internal rotation and elbow extension.

We also found that should abduction was lower. Shoulder abduction is defined as the angle between the side of the torso and the upper arm, or humerus. It went down significantly at ball release, from 97 to 93 degrees. Although it may depend slightly on the pitcher, it is generally seen that being closer to 90 degrees at release is a positive measure.

We found that the shoulder was less externally rotated at ball release, which may be a novel finding, because we couldn’t find much research on it. It will be interested to see if this finding continues to show up, or if it was a distinct change in the group of athletes that we had in this sample.

Lastly, we saw that shoulder-abduction torque was higher. Shoulder-abduction torque can be described as the resultant torque that pulls the shoulder upward. Shoulder-abduction torque was significantly higher in the velocity-decrease group and entire sample.

There were also some changes when looked at the velocity-increase and decrease groups separately. The velocity-increase group saw an increase in maximum-shoulder superior force. The velocity-decrease group showed decreases in maximum-elbow anterior force, max-elbow compressive force, max-elbow flexion torque, and max-shoulder compressive force.

The biomechanics reports in the study were not used to change athletes’ mechanics; they were specifically an observation. It’s unknown if the comparisons would be different if the biomechanics reports were used to drive training decisions.

This also brings up the importance of looking at the average results of a whole sample compared to an individual athlete. While you can take lessons from group averages, it’s important to remember that coaches are not working with a group of 17 pitchers, but 17 individual pitchers.

Range of Motion

Of the whole sample of pitchers, there were four range of motion measurements that were different.

• Shoulder internal rotation range of motion in both the dominant and non-dominant arms.
• Shoulder total range of motion for the dominant and non-dominant arms.

First, when the group was divided into those who gained pitching velocity and those who didn’t, neither showed a significant increase in shoulder external rotation. Our initial hypothesis that external range of motion would increase was not supported.

Second, external rotation did not increase biomechanically in our pre/post comparison.

It has been previously hypothesized that weighted balls largely work through increasing external range of motion, both passively and dynamically. This is likely because more external rotation has been associated with ball velocity in previous research and weighted balls, and plyos are often heavier than a baseball.

We’ve previously discussed the mismatch of this belief with biomechanical information that we do have on 6- and 7-oz balls. In short, it is confusing to assume weighted balls increase external rotation, and therefore elbow torque, when 6- and 7-oz balls have been shown to result in less elbow and shoulder torque than baseballs. This relationship may change as we learn more about the biomechanical changes of heavy weighted balls.

The more interesting finding in this group was the increase in internal-rotation range of motion. This is likely due to the mobility work and manual-therapy work available to the pitchers in the study.

In previous research on throwing, it’s been more often observed that lacking range of motion, both internal and external, has been seen to increase the injury risk for throwers.

Therefore, we may view this as a positive development that external rotation was fairly stable and internal rotation increased.

This, along with other research on short-term range of motion changes, suggests that ROM is more of a fluid measurement than a permanent measurement. Of course, there will be ranges that athletes will likely stay in due to anatomical differences and humeral retroversion. But ROM will also fluctuate depending on the previous workload and may also change depending on weight-room, mobility, and manual-therapy work.

The results of this study suggest that under the proper guidance and implementation of screening and mobility work, range of motion may be able to stay in a consistent range or possibly move in a positive direction (by more internal rotation) when throwing weighted balls and plyos in a throwing program.

Besides the range-of-motion measurements taken in the study, athletes at Driveline have their range of motion measured as a part of their training, and those measurement are used to adjust mobility work. Therefore, this is evidence that, if measured regularly, you can have positive changes in range of motion from screening and proper targeted implementation of mobility exercises.

Velocity

Of the whole sample, there was no change in velocity. Broken up into groups, 9 gained velocity and 8 lost velocity. It is important to note that the days that throws were collected were medium intent, not high intent, days. The athletes were told to throw as hard as they were comfortable throwing during the initial and follow-up sessions. While ball velocity is important it was not the main metric that were interested in examining as part of the 6-week training period. 

The main focus of the study was not on velocity improvements but what biomechanical and range of motion changes (if any) would occur while doing the training. Based on previous research on weighted balls and our own results that we’ve published openly, the question on whether weighted balls can help develop velocity should be an unequivocal “Yes.”

Which means the question weighted ball research should turn to is: “Under which circumstances are weighted balls best applied?”

One thing that we did learn was how easy it is for pitchers to downregulate to a slower velocity when markered up. Therefore, velocities recorded while they threw were significantly lower than what we would see in gym clothes while throwing on a mound. This still holds true when we are having athletes throw at 100% intent; we generally see a 5 – 10 mph drop when throwing in sliding shorts with markers on compared to their best mound velocity.

Moving Forward

As we’ve mentioned in previous articles on weighted balls (here, here, and here), each paper aims to push us further towards better results for athletes. This paper helps point us more in the right direction.

This also suggests that we need to start looking more at pairings of different kinds of training, such as mobility and weight-room work, instead of looking at them individually, because more can likely be gained from pairing those specific types of interventions.

As a part of publishing through PeerJ, all the data is available at the bottom of the link to the paper.

This article was written by Research Analyst Michael O’Connell

The post 6 Week Research Paper Recap appeared first on Driveline Baseball.

Integrating assessment data to help athletes is vital to what we do at Driveline. One piece of data that we occasionally see is pitchers with high elbow climbs. Today, we’re discussing what we see from a training-floor perspective and a biomechanical assessment. This will be a good example of how you can combine biomechanics, assessments, and retesting with the knowledge of a throwing trainer in order to help make positive movement changes in your athletes.

Trainer Perspective of High Elbow Climb

At Driveline, pitchers throw our constraint drills nearly every single day. Each drill is designed for an athlete to focus on a particular part of the pitching motion. While the pivot pickoff is a key drill for remapping arm action, you can likely see high elbow climbs in nearly every drill.

Take, for example, this video taken from behind an athlete and consider how it gives us an idea of his arm action and, more specifically, where his elbow is in relation to his shoulders.

A ‘high elbow climb’ can be defined as the humerus (upper arm) getting too high going into ball release. Technically speaking, it is called a high shoulder abduction. Below is an example of how abduction is measured:

We’ve seen, on average, elite throwers are more consistent with their shoulder abduction from front-foot contact to ball release—almost as if their elbows and shoulders rotate on the same plane as one another.

Note where he’s throwing the ball in that first clip. This is really important–he throws directly in front of his face.

Now, we’ve seen that his arm action could use some adjusting, but there are some steps to take when approaching making a change like this.

1. Explain the movement inefficiency. In this case, I showed him the path his elbow took in relation to his shoulders and told him to imagine them rotating on the same plane until release.
2. Show the athlete what you (the coach) is seeing. I showed him where he was “aiming”–right in front of his face, almost across his body. The ball would land on the other side of his body indicating he was not throwing to someone in front of him but more to the glove-side. The fix was to aim in a direct line off his shoulder, and I had him set up and visualize the exact target on the wall (a piece of tape as a target can also help). Doing so made it much harder for him to exaggerate the elbow spiral and raise the elbow above his shoulders.
3. Change the environment. Specifically for this athlete, a common fault was that he adjusted his lower half direction to compensate for where he was throwing the ball and his arm action reverted back. We set him up on a piece of tape and told him he could not land on the other side of it with his front foot.

Athletes working on the PlyoCare wall can often get distracted by focusing internally on how they are moving instead of having an external focus. In this case, we like to try changing the environment (with tape in this case) to see if we can get better movement out of the athlete.

Biomechanics of High Elbow Climb

Within the biomechanics reports, we obtain various kinematic metrics of the upper and lower body during the throwing motion. In this case, we are going to look at upper torso positions like elbow flexion, external rotation, shoulder horizontal abduction, and shoulder abduction in reference to other segments as they move from foot contact through ball release. As mentioned above, for shoulder abduction we typically like to see consistency from foot contact through ball release at around 90 degrees.

What does this look like on the report? Below, we’ve clipped page two from our biomechanics report that outline the athlete’s upper-body kinematic positions. Shoulder abduction is highlighted in the table with the red box, and the path the angle follows from foot contact to ball release is the purple line on the graph, outlined by the red box. As you can see, the shoulder is right around 90 degrees at foot contact and ball release and generally follows a straight line along that 90-degree path.

We’ve touched on the importance of a consistent arm path. But biomechanically, it also makes sense that we would want to have consistent movement in this plane. During the arm action, the humerus will already have to move through the transverse plane (shoulder horizontal abduction), out of scap load, and into release.

Additionally, the fastest movement in sports will also be occurring at this joint through the internal rotation of the humerus, at speeds upwards of 6,000 deg/sec. With all that movement already occurring around those two axes, throwing in additional movement of the humerus at the level of the shoulder could possibly create inefficiencies and unwanted stress.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Not all arm paths are equal. Not everyone needs to subscribe to this idea of shoulder abduction being at 90 degrees from foot contact to ball release. This is a general observation, and ultimately everyone throws a little differently. It’s also possible that a certain thrower needs to have a different abduction path due to ROM deficiencies, impingements, anthropometric differences, etc. This idea of a shoulder-abduction path comes from the average of elite throwers that we see across the board. In this case, we’re using an athlete as an example of who would benefit from an adjustment because of his performance level and other information that was gathered in his assessment.

Changing Arm Action on the Plyo Wall

Specifically for this athlete, he adjusted his lower-half direction to compensate for where he was throwing the ball. So, his arm action would not make the necessary adjustment. We then had to adjust his lower half to land directly ahead while still being able to hit the spot on the wall that we marked. We set him up with another piece of tape on the ground and told him he could not land on the other side of it with his front foot.

Let’s look at the second video, after the intervention

You can see the target adjustment made an improvement in how his arm unwinded. The elbow is much closer to the same plane as the shoulders.

While we saw immediate results, in that his arm action improved the way we wanted, this practice will need to be drilled often, daily if possible, to break the habit. It’s important that the athlete focuses on how it feels for him when he performs the drill correctly within the constraints, so he can reproduce it elsewhere without the constraints.

Lastly, it’s important to remember that this drill might not work forever and might not be right for everyone. As a trainer, you have to weigh the potential pitfalls of a drill and its adjustments with the potential improvements.

Biomechanics ReTests Can Help Us Tell if Changes Stick

Here’s a great example of an athlete that we have assessment and retest data on who needed to make a similar change. When he showed up, we deemed that his shoulder abduction path “had room to improve.”

Did ya see it? It’s right there. Here let’s try a different view, maybe that’ll help.

How about now? No? To be honest, neither did I, and I spend everyday looking at these images. But when we look at the data for the shoulder abduction path, It’s pretty clear that the path of the humerus is inefficient with room to improve. This is also a great example of the value of the biomechanics reports and their ability to provide us with objective data that we sometimes might miss.

• The arm starts almost 19 degrees above 90 at foot contact.
• It drops down below 90 to about 87 degrees (as seen in the graph).
• It then comes back up to 107 degrees by ball release.

That’s quite a bit of unnecessary movement around an axis that we’d like to see stay more consistent.

This was noted in the athlete’s training profile:

“Shoulder abduction at ball release is pretty high, so really make sure to keep an eye on your arm path and make sure that your aren’t exaggerating the elbow spiral. Pivot Pickoffs are going to be the best drill to feel that.”

Data means nothing if we don’t monitor and then retest. So a few months later, following an emphasis on arm action and arm path, we retested this athlete in the biomechanics lab. It doesn’t look like much, but we made pretty significant changes.

Again, it’s hard to tell in the video, but the report is able to fill in the rest of the story for this athlete:

That’s pretty clean arm action. You can see the purple line of shoulder abduction stays fairly consistent at around 90 degrees from foot contact through ball release. Here’s another view where I’ve overlayed the assessment and retest data. The assessment data remains in color while the retest data is now black.

A few important things to note from this overlay:

• He has a significantly cleaner abduction path (purple).
• He is still able to maintain a good amount of shoulder horizontal abduction/scap load (red line).
• He achieves significantly more maximum external rotation (MER). It’s possible that this new abduction position allowed the athlete to achieve greater MER.

Additionally, this athlete gained 5 mph from his assessment mound velocity (84 mph) to his exit mound velo session (89 mph). While also maintaining a low max varus moment from assessment (74 Nm) to retest (80 Nm).

Let’s see what the overlay looks like when we compare the motion capture of both reports:

Red: assessment

Green: retest

Again, it’s hard to see much, but here’s what the data tells us:

• It doesn’t appear that the retest elbow is that much “lower,” which means that trunk positioning and tilt are heavily influencing shoulder abduction angle.
• For a split second in the middle there, you can see how the athlete has achieved great maximum external rotation, which could be related to this more efficient abduction path.

Conclusion:

• On average, elite throwers exhibit a consistent shoulder abduction from front foot contact through ball release (close to 90 degrees). Though, as we mentioned earlier, there are exceptions.
• As trainers, it is sometimes possible to see this in athletes on the plyo wall but having a motion capture report at Driveline goes a long way to validating our observations and the results of interventions.
• It is possible that constraint drills can help improve metrics like shoulder abduction. In addition to the drills, it can be useful to change the environment for desired movement changes. Also, it is important to clarify to the athlete what movement is desired, so they can aim to “feel” the change.

This blog post was co-written by Trainer Bryan Leslie and Biomechanicst Anthony Brady, was edited by Michael O’Connell

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