new help for Tommy John

I am a huge sport parent. My kids all play sports. And i am not
talking just one! Sometimes each child has two different sports going
on. Well, as of now it is baseball and softball season. Every year when
this season apporaches my skin starts to crawl. Four out of my children
are pitchers. and if your a good pitcher, you are used and used. Sure,
each child is in a rotution and is only in for their alloted innings,
but, there are times where an inning goes to long and their pitch count
is higher than it should be. They finish their innings and continue to
play the rest of the game. Maybe they play in another position or maybe
they sit the bench. They use their arm muscles for more than just
pitching. sometimes, they are used to much, and they end up coming down
with what the medical field calls Tommy John.

Tommy John surgery
is for the repair and/or replacement of the UCL(ulnar collateral
ligament). A healthy ligament is threaded through holes that are drilled
into the bone around the elbow. This surgery was named after pither
Tommy John in 1974. A surgeron by the name of Frank Jobe desigined the
surgery just for John so that he may be able to return to baseball after
injuing his elbow.

Well, the founders of the American Sports
Medicine Institute, Dr. James Andrew and Dr. Glenn Fleisig are hoping
their research and input will help prevent kids and professionals from
needing this surgery. These doctors have given their input and research
to Joe Nolan and his company,Motus. Motus is a well known biomechanics
company in Florida. Joe and his company have created the Motus Pitcher
Sleeve. From what people say it could be the Holy Grail of pitching!



The
Sleeve looks like a normal compression sleeve. It has a small sensor
near the elbow that contains both accelerometers and gyroscopes. These
are very similair to those that are found in todays smart phones and
video game controllers. Ben Hansen, Motus' vice president of technology, has led the development and explained the device in detail.

 According to Hansen the Sleeve's data is compareable to the motion capture.


"If the motion capture is a 10, then the Sleeve is almost a 10," he
said. "It's already capturing at a higher rate (1,000 frames per second
versus their current 500 fps for motion capture). It requires no setup,
and when we compare various measures to the database we've built doing
years of motion capture, it's very good."


Those measures alone will astound. The Sleeve can capture more than arm speed and release point, it can calculate the angles
of the elbow and shoulder. It can directly measure, in real time, the
forces acting on the ulnar collateral ligament.


With the real time measures, it helps counteracts one of the main
problems with motion
capture.For those of you that do not know what motion capture is, it is a
study that is done in a none game setting and the player has to wear up
to 50 markers and is
usually required to wear a form-fitting suit.With all that gear on they
can not pitch like they would in a game.


Now with the new Sleeve the adrenaline they generate during a game
can be
capture.The Sleeve can capture all the practice and long-toss too. They
are concerenced with measuring the long toss tho. Why? because it outs
more forces on the arm and changes the players mechanics.

"This tells you immediately," Hansen explains. "It can warn you when
the forces are up, in real time. Coaches can see if the pitcher is
changing things in long toss." The teams that don't allow long toss (and
yes, they do exist in MLB) will have a harder time maintaining that
stance if the Sleeve gains wide usage."


The most intresting thing that the Sleeve can calculate is fatigue.


"It will give a measure of fatigue as well as efficiency. The easy
thing to see is arm speed slowing down, but it also takes into account
changes in mechanics like elbow angle, release point and others."

There
are 10 MLB teams that are using this wonderful technology. If we are
able to prevent Tommy John, we are able to help many children strive for
what they dream of