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Baseball Pitchers' Perceived Effort Does Not Match Actual Measured Effort During a Structured Long-Toss Throwing
Heath P Melugin1, Dirk R Larson2, Glenn S Fleisig3
1Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
The American Journal of Sports Medicine
|June 1, 2019
Summary
Baseball pitchers perceive reduced effort but actual throwing metrics decrease less. Elbow torque and velocity do not proportionally decrease with perceived exertion during rehabilitation programs.
Area of Science:
- Sports Medicine
- Biomechanics
- Rehabilitation Science
Background:
- Baseball pitchers often reduce throwing effort during rehabilitation to protect healing tissues.
- The relationship between perceived exertion and actual throwing metrics in structured long-toss programs is not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the correlation between decreased throwing effort and throwing metrics.
- To determine if throwing metrics decrease proportionally with perceived effort reductions.
- To quantify variability within individual pitchers' throwing metrics.
Main Methods:
- Sixty male high school and collegiate pitchers wore motusBASEBALL sleeves to measure biomechanical data.
- Pitchers performed throws at maximum, 75%, and 50% perceived effort levels.
- Elbow varus torque, arm velocity, and ball velocity were measured and compared across effort levels.
Main Results:
- All throwing metrics significantly decreased with reduced perceived effort (P < .001).
- Decreases in elbow varus torque (7%) and ball velocity (11%) were less than the reduction in perceived effort (25%).
- Intra-thrower reliability for most metrics was excellent (ICC > 0.75).
Conclusions:
- Actual throwing metrics do not decrease proportionally with perceived effort reductions in baseball pitchers.
- This finding is crucial for physical therapists, physicians, trainers, coaches, and athletes managing elbow stress during rehabilitation.