…It’s not quantum (yet) – Mechanical engineers say that baseball pitching coaches are coaching their players all wrong (which is why the pitching is so bad on most teams?) They should be paying attention to Newtonian physics!
Mike Marshall, the former major league baseball pitcher, does it right: he teaches a pitching methodology based on Sir Isaac Newton?s three laws of motion.
Marshall, who played in the major leagues for 14 years and won baseball’s most prestigious pitching honor, the Cy Young Award in 1974, believes “pitchers of all ages would be very well served by learning and applying the three laws of motion correctly.”
Marshall, who has a Ph.D. in exercise physiology, believes that proper biomechanics based on Newton’s law of inertia, law of acceleration, and law of reaction could solve basic flaws in pitching delivery and promote physical health and career longevity. Marshall, He thinks that traditional pitching methodologies advanced by baseball coaches at all levels contradict these laws of physics.
Marshall applies Newtonian principles to every aspect of a baseball pitcher’s windup, arm and leg movement, delivery and follow-through. Mastery of the three laws, says Marshall, could erase flaws in leg thrust, rotation of the body, release point of the baseball toward home plate, and position of the shoulders, forearm and elbow of the throwing arm.
His approach is to reduce “the unnecessary force that bones, ligaments, tendons, and muscles must overcome” when a pitcher throws a baseball.
According to Marshall, the traditional pitching techniques are almost always taught with a minimal understanding of the underlying biomechanics. He feels this practice “must be replaced with the vastly increased knowledge and understanding we have acquired through medical science.”
Art credit: Dreamstime.com
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