Baseball coaches and trainers agree that proper mechanics and form are key factors in ensuring a good performance and long-lasting careers. Even Little League pitchers are taught by coaches how to properly form and mechanics a pitch.
Instructional methods can vary from coach-to-coach and team to team. Mike Marshall, a former Major League Baseball hurler, teaches a fascinating pitching technique. It’s based on
The three laws of Sir Isaac Newton
Motion.
Marshall, who was a 14-year veteran of the major leagues and won the Cy Young Award in 1974 for his pitching excellence, believes in this. “pitchers of all ages would be very well served by learning and applying the three laws of motion correctly,”He says it in Mechanical Engineering magazine.
Marshall says that biomechanics based upon Newton’s laws of inertia/law of acceleration and lawof reaction could help solve fundamental flaws of pitching delivery. They can also promote career longevity and physical health. Marshall, who received a Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 1974 in exercise physiology, believes that the traditional methods of pitching used by all levels of baseball coaches contradict the laws.
Marshall applies Newtonian principles in every aspect of a pitcher’s delivery, windup, arm, leg, and arm movement. Marshall claims that mastery of these three laws could eliminate flaws in leg thrust and rotation of the body, release point for the baseball towards home plate, and position of shoulders, elbow, and forearm of the throwing arm.
Marshall’s approach to reducing costs is to minimize. “the unnecessary force that bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles must overcome”According to Mechanical Engineering (the flagship publication of American Society of Mechanical Engineers), a pitcher throws the baseball. The report concludes with: “According to Marshall, the traditional pitching techniques are almost always taught with a minimal understanding of the underlying biomechanics — this practice must be replaced with the vastly increased knowledge and understanding we have acquired through medical science.”
ASME’s Bioengineering Division, as well as other activities, explores how mechanical engineering knowledge and principles can be applied to life sciences. This includes human health and rehabilitation. Visit www.asme.org for more information. www.asme.org.
