Mobility Screen

Kendall presents a unique combination of mobility levels.  She is bordering hyper-mobile in her thoracic spine rotation at 70 degrees to the right and 80 degrees to the left.  She is neutral in internal hip rotation at 45 degrees to both sides and loose in external at 65 degrees to both sides.  She is also on the tight end of neutral in scap retraction at 3”.

She struggled to stabilize during the pelvic tilt, pelvic rotation and torso rotation screens.  These should be pieces of her movement prep routine.

Kendall passed the secondary overhead squat indicating her limiting factor is thoracic extension, but she has good hip and ankle mobility.  She passed the side bend screen at greater than 30 degrees to both sides.

Shoulder internal and external rotation is good.  She passed both the lat length and impingement tests.  Kendall was able to hold the reach, roll and lift test on both sides, but her bicep compensated for the scap on the right side and she showed mobility issues on the left side being unable to turn the palm up during the test.  She does have good muscle build there as we were unable to get under her scaps in the palpation screen.

Kendall was limited on both legs in the toe touch.  Single leg balance was good on the right side at 15 seconds, but poor on the left side at less than 5 seconds.  She passed the glute bridge test, but did show some core instability throughout 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.

Kendall creates a heel based load in her rear foot as seen in our pressure plate.  She generates 101% body weight (144 lbf) in vertical force in her rear leg. She does lose that overall force rather quickly.  We would like to see her ride out that rear side longer.  She creates 216% body weight in vertical force in the lead leg and has a good rate of force production.  She had a high horizontal force output in her lead leg and a good rate of force development at 106% body weight (151 lbf).  Her x-axis timing is low at around 40%.

KVEST Sequencing & Rotational Speeds

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

Kendall presents as an out of sequence swing pattern (pelvis, upper arm, torso, wrist).  Her swing is close to being in sequence but lacks a scap load around a stabile torso to take out the slack.  Her torso at heelstrike is inwardly rotated -11 degrees and continues to inwardly rotate as she launches her swing (-14 degrees).  This suggests she’s still trying to take out slack or has a rotary stability issue.  Her pelvis speed is great at 796 deg/sec., but it comes with a slow acceleration and deceleration pattern.  Her torso speed is 891 deg/sec., which is a minimal gain over the pelvis. This is due to still taking the slack out of her sequence as she launches and also from a poor deceleration pattern of the pelvis.  Her upper arm speed is 1238 deg/sec., but it peaks before the torso which shows a manual acceleration around an unstable torso.  Her wrist speed is 2054 deg/sec.

Bat Sensor Data

Kendall had bat speeds between 60-63 mph.  Her attack angles are 4-9 degrees which are in the low acceptable range for the incoming pitch angle.  Her vertical bat angle was -18 to -29 degrees.  We typically look for -20 to -30 at the top of the zone and -30 to -40 at the bottom of the zone.  The flatter range (-18) start to put us at risk of mis-hitting balls into play at a higher rate.  Her time to impact is good at 140-150 milliseconds. Her rotational acceleration was between 16-19 G’s which suggests a tight turn.  Her ball exit speeds were 54-66 mph.

Summary & Recommendations

• Create a better scapular load to take the slack out of the torso. 
• Increase deceleration patterns with PVC check swing drills as well as anti-rotational work.
• To improve x-axis timing we would suggest maintaining heel load in her advance by controlling pelvic center of mass and also working on turning pelvis into landing.   

11.20 Live Retest – KVest Data

Kendall presents a swing that is in sequence, and that was consistent with both live swings that she took. Despite her segments reaching their peak in order, she does not create a ton of stretch between her pelvis and torso at both heel strike and her first move.  Her pelvis is counter rotated more than her torso in both, and therefore she is not getting a proper x-factor number (7.13 degrees at heel strike, 6.43 at first move).  We like to see these numbers be below zero, indicating that the shoulders are behind the hips as we begin to turn. This lack of separation is evident in her speed gain numbers, which are below average (1.1 from pelvis to torso, 1.2 from torso to lead arm).  Her swing pattern is a one-piece turn. If she can create a bit more inward torso turn at heel strike and hold it into her first move, she should create more separation and take advantage of her torso mobility, which is loose.  She creates great hip speeds (782 deg/s), but below average torso (867 deg/s) and lead arm (1013 deg/s), further supporting her lack of separation into her turn.  Her K-Vest data also shows great posture during the turn, as we see consistent torso bend at heel strike (30.34 deg) and first move (31.14 deg), which becomes side bend at contact (29.4 deg). 

11.20 Live Retest – Force Plate Data

Kendall creates a ball of foot pressure load.  She peaks the vertical force in her back leg as her knee goes into extension in the advance.  The force immediately trails off thereafter.  We want to see a heel centric load here and then for her to be able to carry that load as she advances.  This will make it easier to have adjustability later as well as create a good stretch around a stabile femur.  Her vertical force on the lead leg is good at 199% body weight and it also shows a slightly above average rate of force production.  Her horizontal force was great at 117% body weight and a great rate of force production.  X-axis timing is not great and is due to pushing out of her backside early with the knee extension.  By getting into a heel load and maintaining vertical force further into her advance she should allow herself to have more adjustability.

11.20 Live Retest – Blast Data

With only one swing to go on during the live session, she swung 63 MPH, which is average.  Her time to impact was good at 150 milliseconds, and her attack angle was 11 degrees, also good.  Her rotational acceleration was good at 14 Gs, but shows room for improvement with improved separation. Her vertical bat angle was -20 degrees, which is acceptable if the pitch she swung at was at the top of the zone.  Her exit velo was 52.4 mph on her one ball in play.