Switch Pitching

Being a big baseball fan, this story really caught my attention. I was listening to the radio on the way home from work yesterday, and they were talking about Yankees minor league pitcher Pat Venditte appearing in a minor league game agains the Braves and pitching both right handed and left handed. I'm sure that most people are familiar with the concept of "switch-hitting", where a hitter can bat either left-handed or right handed depending on the pitcher. In recent years, however, the number of switch hitters in the major leagues appears to be dwindling. It is very difficult to put in the practice hours to be an expert hitter from both sides of the plate. Even more difficult than switch hitting is switch pitching. But, that is what Pat Venditte is able to do as he attempts to work his way up the major leagues with the Yankees. Venditte has a special six finger glove so he can easily switch from a right handed pitcher to a left handed pitcher between batters. According to Rick Reilly of ESPN, only 3 pitchers have appeared in a Major League game and pitched with both arms. What is remarkable to me is that he has the ability to pitch proficiently with both arms. From a Motor Learning and Biomechanics perspective, that is very difficult to do; to achieve optimal neural activation of the muscles and movement coordination pattern of his non-dominant arm. Most people I know, including myself, look rather clumsy and uncoordinated when trying to throw with their non-dominant arm. Also, in order for him to be a proficient left handed and right handed pitcher, he has to put in twice the amount of work that a normal pitcher would. That includes rotator cuff exercises for both arms, drills using both arms, warming up both arms, practicing with both arms, etc. It really is a remarkable achievement and hopefully he will be able to progress and pitch in the Major Leagues.

Article and video from mlb.com of Pat Venditte

Tommy John Surgery

With spring training in full gear and opening day right around the corner, baseball injuries are starting to crop up. A common injury among pitchers is a tear of the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL). This ligament is found on the medial (inside) of the elbow and is critical to stabilize the elbow during the overhand throwing motion. Most of the time it is injured over time due to the repetitive stress placed on the ligament from overhand throwing. In 1974, Tommy John, a pitcher for the Dodgers, tore the UCL in his pitching arm. Up until this point, this injury was considered to be a career ending injury, much like an ACL tear was to a football player. Tommy John was not ready to quit playing baseball, so he asked Dr. Frank Jobe to invent a procedure to repair the ligament. Dr. Jobe took a tendon from John's forearm, and used this tendon as a replacement for the UCL. The surgery was a success and John won over 170 games after the procedure, which bears his name. Today, many of the best pitchers in baseball have had Tommy John surgery, including Chris Carpenter, John Smoltz, Josh Johnson, and A.J. Burnett. The tendon that is now commonly used as a replacement for the UCL is the palmaris longus. Rehabilitation after surgery generally takes 12-18 months, and will vary depending on whether the pitcher is a starter or a reliever.

Multiple Sclerosis

We are covering the nervous system in Applied Anatomy, and one of the diseases we have discussed is multiple scleroris (MS). I'm sure that most people have heard of MS or know someone that has this disease, but may not truly understand it. To really understand MS, we first have to discuss the axon. The axon is the long, cylindrical process of a neuron (nerve cell) that transmits the signal to the next neuron or muscle. Many axons are covered by a myelin sheath, which is made of lipids. The myelin sheath insulates the axon and increases nerve conduction velocity, meaning the signal travels down the axon faster with myelin. Multiple scleroris is a disease of the central nervous system (CNS). The myelination degenerates, and causes sclerosis (hardening) to occur at different places along the axon. In a way, MS is similar to atherosclerosis, in which arteries become hardened and blood flow is reduced or cut off. With MS, the nerve signal is either transmitted very slowly or not at all. MS affects both sensory neurons and motor neurons. Most people are diagnosed with MS between the ages of 20-40. The original symptoms are typically transient, unilateral blindness, or double vision. MS is diagnosed with a lumbar puncture. Because the nerve signal cannot reach the muscle, atrophy will occur (wasting away of skeletal muscle). Persons with MS will also have difficulty with fine motor movements and whole body coordination. There is no known treatment for MS, but most people can live fairly normal lives if the symptoms are managed properly. Here is an article on a former Auburn football player I worked with and his life with multiple sclerosis.

Physics of Curling

One of my favorite sports to watch during the winter Olympics is curling. Curling may seem simple and boring on the surface, but it is really a complex sport with much skill and strategy involved. There are two important principles of physics that influence curling. The first principle is friction. According to Newton's third law of motion, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So, as the stone slides along the ice, it exerts a force on the ice, and the ice exerts a force back on the stone. Friction can be defined as the reaction of the ground to the forces exerted on it in the horizontal plane by the person or object (in curling, we are concerned with the stone). The friction force on the stone will act in the opposite direction in which the stone is moving, and will decrease the stones velocity, thus slowing it down. If the curlers want the stone to travel further, then they need to reduce the amount of friction. This is done by "sweeping" the ice in order to make it smoother and reduce friction. Sweeping is also done to make the stone "curl."

Another important principle of curling is collisions. One of the strategies in curling is to knock the other teams stone(s) out of the house (scoring area). This involves the collision of one or more stones. Collisions occur frequently in sports, such as hitting a baseball, tennis ball, volleyball, etc. Again, because of Newton's third law, when two objects collide, they exert equal and opposite forces on each other. The sum of the momentum of the two objects will be the same before and after the collision, therefore, there is a conservation of linear momentum. Momentum is defined as the mass of an object or system multiplied by its velocity. Most curling stones have a mass of around 20 kg. So, a stone with a mass of 20 kg and velocity of 7 m/s (meters per second) linear momentum (G) would be 140 kgm/s. When the stone that has been delivered collides with a stone in the house, a change in momentum will occur between the two stones. Because the mass of the stones will remain constant, the change in momentum will be related to the change in velocity of the two stones. Because of the conservation of linear momentum, if the stone in the house's velocity increases to 4 m/s (from 0 m/s before the collision because it was stationary) after the collision, than the stone that was delivered will have a decrease in velocity from 7 m/s to 3 m/s. Check out the video below for some good curling throws.

Top Curling throws

Southeast ACSM

This past Thursday, Dr. Hale and myself traveled to Greenville, S.C., for the annual meeting of the Southeast Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine. This three day conference involved meetings and research presentations by faculty and students from across the southeast. I did an oral presentation Friday morning on lateral ankle sprains, and Dr. Hale had a couple of graduate students making presentations. Generally, ACSM is composed more of exercise physiologists than biomechanists, which was never more evident than at the student quiz bowl when they decided to skip the Anatomy category (this was not a popular move with the non exercise physiologists). However, the president of SEACSM, Dr. Grandjean, made a concerted effort to have more biomechanics presentations and tutorials at this year's meeting, and hopefully this trend will continue in the future. Regional conferences are generally more laid back than national conferences, and it is easier to network and discuss research and teaching with other professionals. As you can tell in the picture, we got about 3-4" of snow Friday evening, which was nice for me because we don't get a lot of snow in Mississippi. We plan on returning to the conference next year with a greater number of our students. We want to make Mississippi State a force at this regional meeting.

Dwight Freeny's Ankle Injury

One of the big stories leading up to the Super Bowl this weekend is the status of Dwight Freeny's ankle. Freeny, a defensive end, is one of the best players in the NFL. The media is not giving a very accurate description of Freeny's injury, calling it a "lower" ankle sprain, or "basketball" ankle sprain, so I thought I would try to help out. From watching the video of the injury, Freeny jumped up in the air, and his right foot lands on the foot of Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez. This forced his ankle into excessive inversion (pointing the bottom of the foot in) and plantar flexion (pointing the bottom of the foot down). This mechanism of injury will sprain the lateral ligaments of the ankle, which include the anterior talofibular ligament (ATFL), the posterior talofibular ligament (PTFL), and the calcaneofibular ligament (CFL). The lateral ankle sprain is the most common type of ankle sprain, accounting for about 85% of all ankle sprains. The media is also reporting that Freeny has a Grade III ligament sprain. A grade III sprain indicates a complete rupture of the ligament or ligaments. This would cause a great deal of pain and instability of the lateral ankle, making it difficult for him to push off and change directions. It typically takes several weeks or months to return from a grade III sprain, and may require surgery. I'm sure the Colts athletic trainers and doctors will be working with Freeny around the clock so that he can play Sunday, but I would say if the reports of the extent of his injury is true, he will have a hard time getting on the field.

What is going on?

I try to stay away from talking about coaching rumors and things like that, but since we have a lot of future coaches in our department, I feel like this is a topic worth discussing and learning from. The question is, what in the world is going on with Urban Meyer? On December 26, he announced that he is retiring from coaching due to "health reasons." We later learned that he had lost 20 pounds during the season, and had to be taken to the hospital after the SEC championship game due to chest pains. Most people know that college football coaches work very long hours, have poor diets, and do not get much sleep. The fact that he was stepping away due to his health and wanting to be there for his family seemed noble. But, the next day, he apparently changed his mind, deciding only to take an undefined "leave of absence" in order to take care of his health. Then, news came out this weekend that he apparently is not taking any time off. He said he tried to take a day and a half off, but that didn't work. So, the question becomes, does he really have health issues, more specifically, cardiac issues, that need addressing, or was he just tired at the end of the season and made a rash decision? I just don't understand how he can go from retiring one day because he is afraid of the consequences coaching has had and will have on his health, to now not taking any time off at all. I can only come to two conclusions based on these sequences of events. 1) His health is really not a problem, and he just overreacted initially, or 2) His ego is so big that he can't step away from coaching in order to take care of himself or his family. I just think that he owes some sort of explanation for all of this. Hopefully future coaches can learn from this situation, that they need to take care of themselves, and be honest with people, because the facts around Urban Meyer do not add up.