Analysis of pitching and active joint range of motion in baseball pitchers with markerless motion capture software

Baseball pitching is a highly scrutinized and studied movement, with pitch velocity being an important contributor to future success of an athlete. Pitching biomechanics can reveal important insights about a pitcher’s performance, with markerless, camera-based systems providing new-found opportunities to study pitch mechanics. A potential variable that has not received much attention, but can be a potential predictor of future success, is joint range of motion. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate correlations between off-the-mound active joint ROM, pitching ROM and pitch velocity, when kinematic ROM data were obtained from a novel ProPlay AI markerless system. The AI markerless software had difficulty tracking many of the ranges of motion. However, active (i.e. off-the-mound) thoracic spine rotation and lumbar spine lateral flexion were correlated with pitch velocity (p < 0.05). When combined with demographic and anthropometric variables, strong predictive models for fastball velocity were obtained. There may be potential to include range of motion as a future predictor of velocity, but further work is needed to train and validate computer vision models to assess full ranges of motion for all major joint movements.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Health Sciences (MHSc)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Kinesiology

Grantor

University of Ontario Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Murphy, Adam

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• LaDelfa, Nicholas

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10155/1992

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ontariotechu.scholaris.ca:10155/1992