Mobility, Flexibility & Stability Screening

Karlie is categorized as a “neutral” mover.  Karlie sets up in a “C” posture in her athletic stance.  In her pelvic tilt screen she was unable to create anterior or posterior tilt.  There was no improvement with assistance (we held her shoulders).  She also didn’t show improvement on her hands and knees (yoga – cat and dog).  She was creating all movement with the toracic spine as opposed to the pelvis.  This will limit the amount of energy that can be transfered from the lower body to the upper body. Karlie was limited in her pelvic disassociation screen.  She was also limited with assistance (we held her shoulders).  She was swaying her hips from side to side as opposed to rotating her pelvis/hips.  This will typically show up as an overload of the rear leg in the loading phase and a hip slide in her unloading phase.  Karlie passed her torso disassociation screen.  Karlie was limited in her over head squat, but passed her hands behind the neck squat screen.  This suggests some thoracic extension issues.  Karlie passed her toe touch, but had no curvature to her spine.  We want to see a consistently rounded arch to her back.

Karlie created 40 degrees of thoracic rotation to the right and 30 degrees of thoracic rotation to the left.  Karlie had 35 degrees of thoracic side bend to the right and 35 degrees of thoracic side bend to the left.  In her lower quarter rotation screen she had 50 degrees of right hip internal rotation and 45 degrees of right external hip rotation.  She had 70 degrees of left internal hip rotation and 30 degrees of left external hip rotation.  The large left internal hip rotation suggests that there will be a slow deceleration pattern.  If that is the case, she can stride closed to limit amount of internal lead leg rotation needed to being deceleration quicker.

Karlie has proper external rotation in her left and right shoulder.  She also has proper internal rotate in her left and right shoulder.  Karlie passed her shoulder flexion/lat length screen with her arms raising and elevating to the wall.  Karlie passes all her impingement, wrist deviation, wrist flexion, forearm supination/pronation, and cervical screens.

Karlie was able to balance on her right leg for 5 seconds (1st attempt) in her single leg balance screen (eyes closed).  She balanced for 8 seconds (1st attempt) on her left leg in her single leg balance screen.  Karlie was able to hold for 10 seconds on both legs in her glute bridge screens.  She felt proper muscle activation, noting that she felt majority of activation coming from the glute on both sides.  Karlie passed her reach, roll, and lift screen as well as her scapular palpation screen.  She had 3.5 inches of scapular retraction in her scap retraction screen.  She did note some tightness in her right trap.

Force Plate Swings

Below is video of the swing analysis. I will walk you through this matched up with video.

Karlie creates 102% of body weight (207lbf) vertically in her rear leg as she begins load and advance forward. She does trail off considerably in her advance dropping to 77% of body weight (156lbf) well before foot down.  She reaches 144% body weight vertically in her lead leg, which is lower than we would like to see.  Typically it should be closer to double rear vertical percentage.  The spike in lead leg vertical force is gradual which tells us there is a slow rate of force development.  Karlie reaches 12% of body weight (24lbf) in horizontal force in her rear leg. She creates 53% body weight (107lbf) in horizontal force in her lead leg.  There is a small  difference in rear leg to lead leg transfer in her x-axis timing.   By eliminating some of the hip slide, she should be able to improve this.  Karlie creates 31 lbf-ft of torque in her red leg in her load and initial advance.  We would like to see this number higher to help increase hip rotational speed.  She creates 85 lbf-ft of torque in her lead leg as she launches her swing.  Karlie starts in a ball of foot load and then transfers into a whole foot load and maintains a good whole foot load into her advance based off our back foot pressure plate.

KVEST Sequencing & Rotational Speeds

The 3d readings are on kinematic sequencing and rotational speeds.

Karlie presents a hip, torso, wrist, arm pattern sequence.  Her hip turn speeds reached 407 deg/sec.  This number is low as we would like to see it approaching 500 deg/sec.  She has a slow hip deceleration pattern, which will limit the amount of energy transfer that goes into the torso as well as increase the amount of time it takes to get to contact. Karlie produced 588 deg/sec. of torso speed.  This gain is fairly small and is partly due to the lack of deceleration of lower body.  The readings also indicated that she was still going into a negative torso turn from foot down (-19.26 degrees) into first move (-21.20 degrees), so the body is likely still trying to take slack out as she launches, which will affect time to impact as well as transfer speed gains.  Karlie’s arm speed reached 924 deg/sec.  This is a decent gain, but comes with a slower time to impact.  The shape of the graph shows her arms and wrists accelerating early, likely due to the fact that she is still inwardly rotating her torso as she is launching her swing.  Even though her torso peaks first, the arms and wrists are accelerating early to get around the the still inwardly rotating torso. Her wrist speeds were 1432 deg/sec. and were occurring considerably before contact. With increased stretch between segments (hips to torso) and (torso to scap) she should be able to produce better speed gains and cut her time to impact.

Bat Sensor Data

Karlie’s bat speed was in the range of 50-53 mph.  This number is low and due to the lack of stretch, which limits speed gains.  Her attack angles were between 1 and 7 degrees (which is in a good range for pitch plane). Her time to impact was 180 milliseconds, which is slow and will lead to early committal.  By increasing her stretch between segments and increasing her deceleration rates she should be able to lower those times.

Summary & Recommendations

• Maintain back leg connection to the ground in advance and into the turn.
• Get a bigger scap load to stretch the core for better energy transfer.
• Use side bend to turn torso under the ball.