In a sport where manual scoreboards are not an unusual sight, there’s a digital newcomer that could decrease elbow injuries.
Motus Pro is a set of five sensors and software that collects and analyzes biomechanical data. It is being used by Major League Baseball players like Dellin Betances, a pitcher for the New York Yankees, to prevent elbow injuries.
Pitchers like Dellin can insert one small sensor into a compression sleeve on their pitching arm and the sensor will collect data including hand speed, workload, power generated through the hips during a swing, and elbow torque. For someone like Dellin, who tore his ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in 2009 and had reconstructive surgery to repair it, keeping track of pitching and batting biomechanical data could help prevent future injuries by detecting warning signs such as fatigue or a change in pitching angle.
When you take into account the ubiquity of UCL injuries in professional baseball, and the salaries of players who are sidelined, it is not surprising that Motus Pro has tailored its product to collect biomechanical data from the elbow.
It’s also easy to see the application of Motus Pro to other sports given the small size of the current sensor and the company’s plans to make them small enough to weave into fabrics. For now, the full Motus Pro system is only available to the pros, with a single-sensor version on the market for $150 USD.
Interested in learning more about sport and physiotherapy? It’s not too late to join Physiopedia’s Sport and Exercise Physiotherapy course!