Sports Technology and Improved Performance
Most technologies that are supposed to improve actually performance in a given sport are dependent on repetitive action and the learned response of the participant. For example, the use of a weighted stick swung in a particular way to learn the correct approach to hitting a thrown baseball. This is not technology in the same sense as videotaping actual game footage or statistical analysis of game situations with a computer. This entails real time learning experience with the collaborative aid of some device that is not used in a game situation.
With this definition clearly in mind, technology that purports to improve actual performance will be thus be explored.
A company called Armstrong has conceived of a method of teaching how to correctly throw a baseball, with the use of a
handframe, which teaches proper throwing mechanics and provides instant error feedback by "collapsing" if improper mechanics occur. Ostensibly, the handframe detects the five most common errors in throwing mechanics: dropping the elbow, short arming,
early wrist exchange, poor wrist exchange, fingers not on top of the ball, over rotating, and hyper extending the shoulder.
If proper mechanics are employed throughout the described exercise, then the handframe or "patented rotating ball" remains static in its structure and the participant will have learned the proper approach and follow through. The mechanics are described using positions of the clock and physiology as guideposts. For example, Astart as if taking the ball out of the glove. Fingers start on top of the ball. The handframe points to 3 o'clock..@, and so on (Armstrong Baseball & Softball Training Aids, 1999).
Likewise, there are training technologies designed to help players learn to hit a baseball correctly. Roughly speaking, the idea behind Pro Power BT is the same as in the Armstrong handframe: learn the proper method and success will...