抄録
The present study of baseball pitchers was conducted to: 1) investigate the relationship between lower limb muscle endurance and the rate of decrease in delivered ball velocity, and 2) develop a simple field test (FT) for evaluation of lower limb muscle endurance. Eight collegiate baseball pitchers participated, and each threw 50 consecutive balls at intervals of 12 seconds. During this task, the rate of decrease in ball velocity was determined. The muscle endurance required for flexion and extension of the hip and knee joints was measured using an isokinetic dynamometer. The number of repeated back-lunges to exhaustion was used as an indicator of lower limb muscle endurance obtained from the FT. The rate of decrease in ball velocity was significantly correlated with the isokinetic muscle endurance in knee flexion and the number of back-lunge repetitions. The number of back-lunge repetitions was significantly correlated with the isokinetic muscle endurance of knee flexion. These results suggest that 1) pitchers with a low rate of decrease in ball velocity have superior knee flexion muscular endurance, and 2) the FT proposed in this study is useful as a simple test to evaluate the knee flexion muscular endurance related to the rate of decrease in ball velocity.
