3rd - 5th Grade Session 5: The Biomechanics of Pitching in Baseball

In this week's session the scientists conducted an experiment that analyzed the biomechanics involved during pitching in baseball.

We began by learning what the word 'biomechanics' actually means - the study of the body in motion and the engineering involved in how the body moves through the motion (forces involved etc.).  In particular we looked at the body in motion in baseball by learning and understanding the 6 different phases that are involved during pitching.

For this experiment we focused on the second phase - Stride, which is when the pitcher moves the front foot toward home plate as the two arms swing down and apart from each other.  The stride phase ends when the front foot touches the mound. For our particular purposes we said that stride would end when the front foot touched the ground again.

We wanted to know if using stride makes a difference in the pitch accuracy.  This idea was tested by using a sheet, marked with an X in the middle placed about 40 feet away from the pitcher.  The pitcher then was to conduct 3 trials using stride and 3 more trials not using stride.  The accuracy of the pitch was recorded by observing on whether the pitcher was able to 'hit' the X on the sheet during the trials.  The data on how long it took the baseball to hit the sheet once it left the pitcher's hand was also recorded.  For safety purposes all those helping hold up the sheet and in the surrounding area wore goggles.

So what did our data show?  It showed that indeed using stride increases the acceleration of the baseball because more force is used using the body to propel the ball forward.   We also learned that real life pitchers REALLY need to study their biomechanics and become very comfortable understanding how their bodies move so that they do not get injured!