Mobility Screen

Morgan is neutral bordering on being a tight mover.  Being a tight mover can be advantage as a hitter as they can employ smaller more repeatable movements.

She was able to control the movement, but had vibration during the test.  She struggled with the pelvic rotation test and had no improvement with assistance.  She passed the torso rotation screen.

Her ankle mobility caused her to fail both squat tests.  She is 2 inches short in dorsiflexion on both ankles.  Thoracic spine rotation is 45-50 degrees to both sides.  Side bend was passed.

Shoulder internal and external rotation is good in both arms.  Lat length was adequate and impingement test was passed.  Morgan showed good muscle build in her scaps and we were unable to get under them in her palpation screen.  In the reach, roll and lift test she passed on the right side, but couldn’t hold up the left side and had shaking during the screen.  Scap retraction is tight at 2 inches.

Toe touch is limited and she is 1 inch short on the right leg.  Single leg balance can be improved on at 6 seconds on the right and 10 on the left.  Hips were tight at 30 right internal, 25 left internal, 25 right external, 30 left external.  Glute bridge was passed, but she showed some core instability during the screen.

All wrist and cervical screens were passed.

Force Plate Swings

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

Morgan is primarily a ball of foot loader as seen in our pressure plate data.  She get to 89% body weight vertically in her rear leg (151 lbf).  We like to see 100%+ in rear vertical load. This lower number is consistent with her ball of foot load.  She generated 216% body weight in vertical force in her lead leg (366 lbf).  This is a good rate of force production and comes pretty rapidly.  Morgan creates 78% body weight (132 lbf) in horizontal force in the lead leg.  The over all force and rate of force development are good here.  Her x-axis timing is a little low at about 50%, we would like to see closer to 80% here.

KVEST Sequencing & Rotational Speeds

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

Gracie presents as an out of sequence swing pattern (torso, pelvis, upper arm, wrist).  She is continuing to move into torso counter rotation as she moves from heel strike to first move.  Torso at -11 degrees at heel strike to -13 degrees into launch.  This means she is still trying to take the slack out of her torso and most likely comes with a deficiency in scapular load.  Her pelvis speed was high at 799 deg/sec., but it has a slow acceleration to allow torso to take stretch.  Her torso speed was 958 deg/sec., which is less than it should be if she was able to take the slack out and transfer better from the pelvis.  Her upper arm speed was 1227 deg/sec. and her wrist speed is 1715 deg/sec.  All and all decent sequence if she can take the slack out of her torso heading into launch.

Bat Sensor Data

Morgan’s bat speeds were 61-64 mph.  Her ball exit speeds were 62-67 mph.  Her rotational acceleration was high at 21-23 G’s indicating she is tight in her turn.  Her time to impact was fast at 140 milliseconds.  Her attack angles were 13-17 degrees which are at the high end of the normative range for incoming ball flight patterns.  Her vertical bat angles were -42 to -49 degrees.  This is on the high end for the bottom of the hitting zone.  We look for -20 to -30 at the top of the zone and -30-40 at the bottom of the zone.

Summary & Recommendations

• Create a better scapular load that takes the slack out of the torso as opposed to over rotating the torso to feel the slack being removed. 

• Create and maintain a better heel load as she advances in the stride.  This should allow her to improve loading around hip and also improve her x-axis timing.

• Improve rate of force production by doing the medicine ball series and PVC series.