Hanley Ramirez is going to the disabled list with a back injury. Although we’ve covered back injuries before, I thought it would be cool to look at how the back is used when you swing a baseball bat.
Hanley is having an awful year at the plate, so it is interesting that the back can play such a pivotal role in swinging a bat.
There is a great degree of physics and physiology that goes into the batting swing, but we’re going to look at what specifically happens to a person’s back when they swing the bat.
Where you aware that the key to a successful swing is called trunk coil? Yep, the trunk coil is your body winding up the mid-section to store energy for the swing. As the swing progresses, the back releases this kinetic energy through a step to the front foot, which places more than twice your body weight into the swing.
The trunk coil is an effective measurement of the back muscles used during a baseball swing. These include:
- External oblique
- Internal oblique
- Teres major
- Latissimus dorsi
- Trapezius
It is an impressive list of muscles working together to generate the force necessary to hit a baseball. Here is an example of it coming all together:
A back injury will affect a baseball player’s swing in all cases.