Driveline Sports Science – Moving into a New Era of Sports Performance
I’m pleased to announce that we will be slowly transitioning our Driveline Biomechanics Laboratory into a more general term, namely the Driveline Sports Science Lab. While we started years ago with the lofty goal of digitizing kinematic data of pitchers and picking apart training modalities based on our findings, we have progressed significantly farther since then.
While we haven’t written much about the facility upgrades, I assure you that we’ve been incredibly busy behind the scenes. Here’s a list of what we’ve been working on and what you can expect if you decide to train here in our Elite Pitcher Program:
High-Speed Video Analysis
Our Sports Science Lab has high-speed cameras available for every single athlete throwing in a pitching group. That’s right – not just one high-speed camera, but multiple ones for use by ANY pitcher to evaluate their mechanics, training methods, and movement patterns.
Four-Camera Synchronized System
The throwing bullpen area has a professional mound with MLB length and slope unlike your average cheaply-built indoor mounds. This mound features a four-camera synchronized camera system which captures your pitching mechanics in real-time and is available for viewing on one of our two external monitors installed specifically for clients to review their mechanics.
Video Overlay Technology
Do your pitches get hit hard despite great movement and velocity? Most pitching coaches simply guess at how to get guys out. We’ve developed a scientific way of attacking hitters. In our database of seven full minor and major league baseball seasons, we have every single pitch thrown during the regular season and playoffs. Using this data, we created an exhaustive list on what sequences of pitches get hit hard and likely trajectories of each ball. Ever see the guy throwing 97+ MPH but getting shelled yet watch Koji Uehara of the Boston Red Sox sit guys down with an 88 MPH fastball where they are swinging and missing? We can teach you how to create that kind of deception, and it has nothing to do with “hiding the ball” or other useless coaching tips.
EMG Sensors
Biomechanics only tell you so much – it’s not enough to know the what. We must know the how. But to find out how your body produces the movement patterns you see on high-speed video, you need to analyze the underlying muscle activity. EMG sensors can tell you that, but most on the market are highly intrusive and/or bulky, requiring wires all over the place. Not at the Driveline Sports Science Lab, where our sEMG sensors stick easily on the body without affecting release velocity or mechanics. We use these sensors to really validate what training modalities do for our pitchers and to monitor recovery.
Force Plate Analysis
Ground reaction forces are everything. The pitching delivery starts with a transfer of weight from the back side to the front side, initiating linear movement… and if that movement isn’t ideally timed or explosive enough, you dump speed-strength right off the bat. Force plate analysis measures the efficiency, peak power production, and rate of force development of an athlete from both a bilateral and unilateral sense. By analyzing force production curves against time, we can design better training methods to bring out the elite athlete inside you.
Advanced Weight Room
She doesn’t look like much, but she’s got it where it counts. The Driveline Sports Science weight room is fully-equipped with a wide variety of specialty barbells, cardio equipment (ergometer, Prowler sled), specialty equipment (glute-ham raise, cable machine with multiple attachment points), and everything in-between to make you a stronger, faster, and more powerful athlete.
We’ve got so much more to offer, from unparalleled arm care methods using manual therapy, muscle energy techniques, wrist weight protocols, and specifically-tailored mobility drills to best-in-class velocity development programs using custom-manufactured weighted baseballs, but I think we’ve covered enough for now.
Visit us today and see why we’re the only training facility that blends hardcore science with hardcore training to develop elite pitchers.
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InsdieMan -
cool looking stuff (love the 4 camera and the high speed one), but a few questions. what does a EMG sensor on your forearm tell you?
how do you determine the ideal force? there’s a limit on high you want it, but how do you know what that is?
where did you get the MLB pitch data and how are you normalizing it? for example, how can you tell FB up in-CH low away is really a dominant sequence or is it just tied into how that certain pitcher’s release point and movement profiles matched up to specific hitters? it seems like there are tons and tons of variables to account for there
drivelinekyle -
An EMG sensor on the forearm measures medial forearm activity, specifically pronator-flexor mass activity.
“Ideal force” isn’t exactly what we’re after, but rather testing training modality effectiveness as well as the timing of the pronator-flexor mass muscle activity.
MLB pitch data can be spidered from MLBAM through the Gameday PITCHf/x sources. Just need to know how to write some code. As for your other questions, regression analyses and linear weights help a lot. I recommend reading Perry Husband’s Effective Velocity books as a good primer.
InsdieMan -
I’ll check that book out, thanks.
How are you using linear weights and regression analysis? are you taking linear weights of change-ups after fastballs, after curveballs, etc? but my question was more about if you can tell say Kershaw’s FB/SL combo is dominant vs lefties, how does that specifically help a high school guy who doesn’t have pitches of that quality?
What does pronator-flexor mass activity tell you? I imagine you would see a spike at release but how do you use that?
and I didn’t make my original question about ideal force clear, I was talking about the force plates. how do you use those numbers?
thanks for the quick response, enjoy talking about this stuff
drivelinekyle -
You can normalize for expected outcomes and check for deviations. This is outside of the scope of this blog, but I highly recommend checking out this method detailed on TangoTiger’s site:
https://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/article/the_odds_ratio_method/
Pronator-flexor mass activity depends on timing (synchronizing with high-speed video/kinematic analysis) as well as the raw amplitude (%MVIC in this case).
Force plates will be / are used for a variety of activities. Bilateral vs. unilateral force comparison, landing leg force output, etc.
InsdieMan -
I still don’t see how you are taking the data from big-league pitches and bringing them to HS people. for example, analyzing Kershaw’s pitch data vs a certain hitter would help him vs similar hitters (and maybe all hitters) but how does it help a 16 year old with a 84 MPH and erratic offspeed?
and what are the standards for %MVIC and unilateral vs bilateral force? I understand you get numbers out of the force plates and EMG sensors but how can you tell what is good and what is bad?
drivelinekyle -
For HS we are using a Pro Batter machine that can throw any pitch at any velocity at any location of the strike zone (with a video overlay on a screen) and measuring the results using high-speed video, bat accelerometers, and radar guns to record bat exit velocity. We are testing many high school, college, and pro hitters.
The truth is that most of our clients who we do this kind of analysis on aren’t worried about getting high school hitters out; the Pacific Northwest is not very challenging. A fastball at 90+ with any breaking ball is automatically dominant here, so there is no reason to focus/cater on the 84 MPH pitcher (indeed, pitchers here have to throw 85+ MPH before we focus on pitchability for any reasonable length of time). We focus on the college and pro game because these kids want to succeed there, not their local high school league.
As for your other questions, I can’t give away trade secrets! Unilateral is one-legged work, bilateral is two-legged work (in the context of ground reaction forces, anyway).
Cromulent -
Hmm…. do I see some recoil in that overlay gif?