http://www.sandiegogaitlab.com/chp/chicagotrib.htm


Cub Mark Prior's exquisite delivery from the mound is no accident. It was
shaped in a lab.
By Jeremy Manier
Tribune staff reporter

October 3, 2003

A perfect pitching motion in baseball is a sight of beauty and terror,
starting with a ballerina-like kick and ending with a punch thrown at 100
m.p.h.

It is also a showcase of physics, hinging on the elaborate yet swift transfer
of energy from a thrower's legs to fingertips. And physics is the discipline
used by a growing alliance of coaches and scientists who are combining
computer analysis, high-speed video and real-world experience in a quest to
quantify perfection and train a new generation of hyper-efficient hurlers.

Two of the most exhaustively analyzed and emulated pitchers will meet at
Wrigley Field on Friday, when the Cubs' Mark Prior is scheduled to face Greg
Maddux of the Atlanta Braves in the National League Division Series.

Experts say the two pitchers have different styles but a common grace of
delivery that sets them apart from even the best of their peers. Prior, 23,
is one of the first big-league pitchers whose technique was significantly
shaped in a laboratory, where he has worked for years with biomechanics guru
Tom House to hone a pitching motion that many more experienced players can't
hope to match.
"For the first time in the history of baseball, the medical profession, the
exercise-science profession and the coaching profession are all starting to
get on the same page," said House, who also has coached pitching legends
Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson. "Mark Prior is the poster child for what's
going on."

No two pitchers perform alike, but studies suggest that the greatest ones
have remarkable balance at each point in their delivery, directing their
throwing energy in what researchers call a "kinetic chain." Every step is
perfectly timed, from the kick at the beginning of the motion to the turning
of the torso just before release of the ball, adding power that the human arm
could not produce on its own.

"It's a sequence of body motions where if any part of that chain is broken,
the whole pitch is affected," said Arnel Aguinaldo, who has studied Prior in
his lab at the center for human performance at Children's Hospital of San
Diego. "The trunk is really where a lot of the pitch's power comes from."

Aguinaldo's center has begun offering biomechanical analysis to Little League
pitchers whose parents don't want them to wear out their arms before they
reach their potential. For $400, the pitchers can get a full video analysis,
complete with a comparison of how they stack up to the clinic's model
pitcher--Mark Prior.

House has meticulously studied videos of pitchers filmed at 700 frames per
second, looking for any extra movement, such as a jerk of the head, that
might reduce the energy imparted to the ball. Like many of the best pitchers,
Prior and Maddux move their heads on a perfectly straight line toward home
plate as they pitch--an ability that amazes even House.

"Mark's head moves on a tightrope from the moment he lifts his leg," House
said. "It doesn't go right to left or up and down--it only goes forward.
Every bit of his energy is going right toward the catcher's glove."

Parts of the delivery are literally impossible to change or refine, being
tied to each pitcher's personal body blueprint. The maximum speed a pitcher
can reach depends on how fast his forearm can snap the ball loose--a product
of genetics and basic muscle composition.

That final whip of a pitcher's arm is the fastest human movement that sports
researchers have ever measured, said Glenn Fleisig, research director of the
American Sports Medicine Institute in Alabama. A tennis serve can be faster
than a pitch only because the racket acts as an extension of the arm, with
the greatest speeds toward the end of the racket. A tennis player's arm speed
is actually less than a pitcher's.

"If you could maintain a pitcher's speed of arm rotation for one full second,
your arm would make a full rotation 22 times in that second," Fleisig said.
"It's something that happens so fast you can't coach it, you can't teach it.
But there are a lot of steps that lead up to that amazing moment."

Although many of the fastest pitchers today are tall--Prior and
flame-throwing teammates Kerry Wood and Kyle Farnsworth are 6-4 or
taller--experts said no single body form is best suited to fast or efficient
pitching.

Extremely tall pitchers like 6-foot-10 Randy Johnson have an advantage
because their release point is closer to the plate, giving the batter less
time to react. But some of the fastest pitchers, like "Smokey" Joe Wood of
the early 20th Century Boston Red Sox and Billy Wagner of the present-day
Houston Astros, have stood under 6 feet.

Plenty of pitchers can throw fast. The key to a long career and accuracy is
an efficient, effortless motion that reduces the incredible strains on the
arm.

What sets the chain in motion is the initial leg kick, which builds up
potential energy that can then be released. One of the highest kicks belonged
to Nolan Ryan, arguably the fastest pitcher of all time, who could lift his
left leg up to his nose while maintaining a balanced delivery. The weight of
his falling leg provided energy for the pitch.

House says Ryan once told him: "I throw harder when I lift my leg higher. Go
put that in your computer!"

Prior and Maddux share what some pitching analysts consider a key point of
mechanical prowess: They both rotate their upper body toward home plate
extremely late in the pitch.

Pitchers who face home plate earlier in the pitch lose the energy from their
torso movement, making the pitching arm do more of the work. By rotating
their upper bodies just before the arm whips the ball forward, pitchers can
more fully exploit the energy building from their legs and torso, reducing
the wear on their arms. House said Prior and Maddux have two of the latest
trunk rotations of the pitchers he's studied.

"The way [Prior] times his trunk rotation is perfect, basically," said
Aguinaldo of Children's Hospital. "His motion is so fluid it doesn't look
like he's throwing very hard."

Although Maddux's pitches are relatively slow by big-league standards, many
batters say he is "sneaky fast," with pitches that are difficult to pick up
early. House chalks up some of that effect to Maddux's effortless motion and
late torso movement, which give no clue about the speed of the pitch that's
coming. Putting less stress on the arm also increases accuracy--another
Maddux trademark.

"That unwinding of the pitch happens very late with Prior--as it does with
Maddux and Pedro Martinez, as it did with Nolan Ryan and all the great
pitchers," House said.

For all the advances in understanding the biomechanics of pitches, biologists
still have little understanding of how the full system of muscles, bones and
tendons interacts to create a blazing fast pitch, said Robert Full, a
professor of integrative biology at the University of California at Berkeley.

"Nobody at this point can really model the whole system," Full said. "That's
how complicated it is."

That may be one reason why some pitchers and their coaches prefer to stick
with the low-tech approaches that have produced success over time. One such
practitioner is Leo Mazzone, longtime pitching coach of the Braves, who has
written that when all else fails he tells his pitchers to get into position
for a pitch as if they were about to throw a punch.

"Pitchers at all levels have a pretty good idea of how to throw a punch,"
Mazzone wrote.


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