Scapula Stuff

In "Differences in Scapular Upward Rotation Between Baseball Pitchers and Position Players" (Laudner et. al. - link), it is confirmed that pitchers have significantly less scapular upward rotation than position players at 60 and 90 degrees of humeral elevation.

Your arms at rest are 0 degrees. Raising them parallel with your shoulders straight in front of you is 90 degrees.

At 120 degrees (hyperabduction), it is not statistically significant, but the trend does seem to hold water.

This is important because insufficient scapular upward rotation has been empirically linked with several shoulder disorders.

The question now is: Why does this happen?

In "The Role of the Scapula in Rehabilitation of Shoulder Injuries" (Voight, Thomson - link), Voight et. al. conclude that while "rotator cuff strengthening has been an obvious treatment for various pathologies," the scapula is the base of the rotator cuff and therefore the muscles that control it should be strengthened as well. Weakeness causes altered biomechanics of the glenohumeral joint, possibly leading to unnecessary stresses on the rotator cuff (particularly the subscapularis) and the anterior capsule.

Still, we have no real link between why scapular upwards rotation is decreased in healthy professional pitchers compared to position players of the same organization. Nevertheless, we can regain some of this upwards rotation by performing various types of PNF stretching, D2 patterns with SPRI bands, tons of different types of rows (Eric Cressey of Cressey Performance loves these exercises for pitchers), and serratus anterior punches with SPRI bands.

Altered push-ups with chains or blast straps would be a great way to work similar muscles, especially if you focused on retracting the scapula at the top of the exercise.

Schooling

After careful consideration, I have decided to go back to school and finish my undergraduate coursework. Previous to dropping out of a full-tuition scholarship at a quality private university in the Midwest (very smart, I know), I was studying Economics and Entrepreneurship - two fields of study that I still enjoy reading about today. However, since my plan in life is to work around baseball (and sports medicine/training overall), I'll be taking some general coursework at the local junior college to get my prerequisites out of the way (sadly enough I have 90+ semester credits finished but nearly none in the hard sciences) before applying for admission to a local college to study Exercise Science. After graduation, I will take the ATC and CSCS exams for certification and attend graduate school to earn a Master's degree in Kinesiology. Though I can't really see myself attaining a Ph. D., I suppose it is entirely possible that I will continue on.

Biomechanics Lab

I'm happy to report that the high-speed camera works wonderfully - if there's enough light. I took it to the batting cage to mess around with, and unfortunately there's not much to share due to the poor lighting conditions. However, I managed to take some great footage of Matrix-style choreographed fights at work last night, and that turned out wonderfully.

Dr. Glenn Fleisig of ASMI (hazel's hero, if I recall correctly) was good enough to speak with me on the phone about planning out a biomechanics lab in the Pacific Northwest. He was happy to hear that I planned to study Exercise Science and that I was interested in opening up a biomechanics lab up here to do similar studies on pitchers and hitters. He said that he had a few people interested around the country in opening up "satellite" offices and that he would put me in touch with said people in about a month, after the Injuries in Baseball Conference in Houston.

Dr. Fleisig invited me to come down to Birmingham for a few days to understand the general layout of the facility and to help me get an idea of the cost and planning it would require to build such a lab myself. I look forward to visiting him sometime in 2009 to make this happen (and to think I have yet to visit Bill Peterson of RPM Pitching in Colorado).

The goal of Driveline Mechanics was to establish a baseline of what I thought I knew and see if it panned out, and it turns out that many of you are interested in similar pursuits! There exists a significant body of work out there that I am delving into that suggests that scapular loading below the acromial line can be very beneficial, and as such I am thinking about changing my mind on this very subject (though I never really cared about people passively "loading the scapula," only people who forcibly took it behind the acromial line and especially in a hyperabducted state). I hope that you never stop questioning both what I write and what you read, because the truth is that none of us have all the answers. One day, we may very well have them - but it does us no good to simply know what we should do; we must figure out how to relate them to the youth baseball players who will grow up to be professional pitchers so they can pitch with less injury concerns.