I wonder who you would call if you were learning to pitch a baseball. A trainer or an expert in fluid dynamics? In football who would you get to train the quarter back or the field punter (if that's the correct term) to optimise the flight of the ball?
Excuse me for butting in, but it seems to me that you have never been involved in training athletes (at least not beyond your neighborhood rec leagues). Higher level programs (from competitive youth travel to the pros) utilize scientific findings in their training programs all the time. These findings help athletes throw better, catch better, run better, hit better and do all of these things more safely. Kinesiology is especially important to help athletes develop sport specific workouts that optimize their game and help them avoid injuy. Physics research has also helped trainers develop programs.
For example:
quote:
Can Pitching be Learned?
Two researchers - Dr. Joe P. Bramhall, a team physician at Texas A&M University, and Dr. Charles Dillman, of the American Sports Medicine Institute - videotaped the deliveries of 48 major league pitchers, including Dwight Gooden, Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, and Dave Stewart. They found out that, although these men have different styles, from a scientific point of view they still pitch in the same way.
As far as the arm angle, elbow angle, shoulder angles, and balance were concerned, these men do the same things.
The purpose of the study was to teach young players the correct way to pitch and thus prevent them from making mistakes that might lead to injuries of the pitching arm. The researchers came up with some rules:
1. In the windup, the pitcher should be balanced at the top of the leg kick, coiled, and ready to spring forward.
2. The length of the stride should be slightly less than the body height. The left foot of the right-hander (or the right foot of that left-hander) should step directly toward home plate, moving to the side six inches or less.
3. In the delivery, the back rotation of the shoulder should not be greater than 165 to 180 degrees. The elbow should be flexed between 70 and 115 degrees.
4. In the follow-through, a smooth, extended motion should slow down the pitching arm gradually. The throwing shoulder should be aligned over the opposite knee after the release of the ball. The upper body should be slightly flexed.
Science at the ballgame
You can do research for yourself on sports training programs and how much they rely on science not only to teach their pitchers how to pitch, but to devise weight training programs, decide which gear to use, make adjustments based on weather and field conditions, and just about anything else you can think of. You might surprise yourself.
/ot rant
"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -
The Iron Heel by Jack London
"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea
™ Version 4.2