Abstract
Preventing opponents from stealing bases is crucial to the game's outcome
and to determining a catcher's effectiveness. This study aimed to compare
the durations of the throwing phases between the fastest and slowest exchange
durations in youth catchers. Kinematic data of 21 youth catchers (12+3 yrs,
52.7+14.8 kg, 1.57+0.15 m) were collected. Exchange duration consisted of three
phases (initiation, arm-cocking, and acceleration). Total phase time and
percentage of exchange duration were analyzed. Two repeated-measures
Multivariate Analyses of Variance compared participants' fastest and
slowest trials (α=0.05). Significant within-subject differences were observed
between fast and slow trials in total time (p < 0.001) and percentage
time analyses (p < 0.001). Univariate analysis revealed significantly
shorter in total time of start phase (Fast: 0.74±0.22s, Slow: 1.15±0.46s,
p < 0.001) and percentage time (Fast: 75.6±7.7%, Slow: 82.1±6.6%,
p < 0.001) in fast compared to slow trials, whereas the
arm-cocking (Fast: 18.9±6.5%, Slow: 13.9±5.2%, p < 0.001) and
acceleration phases (Fast: 5.5±2.2%, Slow: 4.0±2.0%, p < 0.001) took
up larger percentages of the overall time, while having no difference in total
time (p > 0.705). Length of the initiation phase had the greatest
effect on exchange duration, suggesting that youth catchers can train to reduce
the time of this phase to increase performance.
Keywords
Pop-Time - Performance Enhancement - Skill Development - Practice Workload
