What do you mean by Baseball and Softball Pitching?

Baseball is a physically demanding sport comprised of several specializes requiring different skills and types of fitness. Running between bases requires good anaerobic fitness, speed, agility, and the force to stop suddenly after sprinting. Feet-first slides build the ankle, knee, and thigh susceptible to injury; head-first slides may injure the hand, wrist and fingers. Hitting a baseball is one of the hardest things to do in sport. It involves excellent eye-to-hand coordination, instantaneous reflexes, and the coordinated movements of the hips, shoulders, arms, and wrists. These actions put a lot of strain on the neck, shoulders, and upper back. Batters thus require good upper body strength and flexibility. Fielding requires good all-round fitness: fielders have to be able to run quickly and catch a ball (usually with the non-dominant gloved hand) and then throw it correctly. All baseball players have to throw the ball at one time or another, but it is the main function of pitchers.

By coordinating the movements of all the strength of the upper body, a pitcher can release the ball at speeds in excess of 160 km per hour. This imposes great forces on the throwing arm, shoulders, upper chest and abdominal region. Therefore, pitchers must be very well conditioned to avoid injury and must be skilled at minimizing the forces on any one part of the body. Pitchers are often required to throw the ball frequently, making them susceptible to overuse injuries. This is particularly true for young pitchers whose tissues are still growing. Sports medicine experts suggest that a growing child who plays baseball should not perform overhand pitching more than 50 times daily or 350 times per week.

Softball can be played in a smaller area than baseball; however it is a faster game. It can be played indoors as well as outdoors. The name is a little improper because it is played with a ball which is actually larger and harder than that used in baseball. In the 1950s softball became one of the biggest sharing sports in the United States and it is now played in many different countries. One of its attractions is that it can be played by mixed teams of men and women. There are two versions of the game: slow pitch in which the ball is delivered in an arc from pitcher to batter and not unfairly fast, and fast pitch in which the delivery is as fast as the pitcher likes.

All pitches are underarm and the pitch distance is shorter than in baseball. Though the slow pitch game is played at a relatively leisurely pace, the fast pitch is action-packed and faster than baseball. The skills and physical demands of softball are related to those of baseball, and the injuries associated with the game are also similar. It was once thought that the underhand throw of fast-pitch softball cause less injury than the overhand throw of baseball, but injury statistics are similar for both. Throwing injuries can be minimized by learning sound technique; strengthening the upper body, specially the anterior shoulder, the biceps, and flexor muscles of the throwing arm; and by beginning and ending all activity with appropriate warm-up and cool-down exercises.