Deceleration-Focused Shoulder Rehabilitative Strategies in Baseball and Softball Athlete

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of deceleration-focused exercises on shoulder range of motion and throwing velocity in both softball and baseball players. The program was based off Tom House's theory that tennis athletes rarely have shoulder pathologies because they hold the weight of a tennis racket as they decelerate, emphasizing greater activation in the posterior shoulder muscles. Volunteers included 28 Division III William Paterson University baseball and softball athletes (18 females and 10 males; age: 19.18 +/- 1.12; height: 1.71 +/- 0.09 m; weight: 74.91 +/- 14.20 kg). Females and males were evenly distributed across two groups for 14 exercise sessions (the resistanc7e band or handheld medicine ball protocol). A pre-test and post-test collected the subject's best active internal/external shoulder rotation and best throwing velocity at a target 40 feet away. A two-tailed, independent t-test showed no significant differences in velocity, internal rotation, or external rotation (p<0.01) between the band and ball groups. The ?velocity mean in the band group (0.73 m/s) was doubled by the mean for the ball group (1.50 m/s). For ? external rotation the band mean (2.86°) was greater than the ball mean (1.93°). In the case of ? internal rotation the band mean (3.29°) was more than double the ball mean (1.29°). The findings of this research suggests that overhead athletes aiming to increase throwing velocity can benefit from performing deceleration training with weighted balls and resistance bands can improve shoulder rotation.