USA Softball partners with Blast Motion on swing tracking technology
USA Softball have announced they’ve appointed Blast Motion as their Official Sensor Technology provider.
Essential reading: Connected tech to up your baseball skills
The sports of baseball and softball are very similar but there are a few differences. These are to do with the pitching area, distance from the pitcher’s area to the home plate, base paths, field size, size of balls and bats.
One of the things they have in common is that they are both a bit late to the party when it comes to sensor technology. Especially compared to say running, tennis or swimming. But a selection of gadgets is now emerging that aims to take your batting skills up a notch.
One of these is the Blast Softball Swing Analyzer. The highly rated and very popular motion capture device attaches to the end of your bat. From there, the sensor and accompanying app capture video highlights, help you analyze your mechanics, and provide drills for improvement.
As part of a new partnership, USA Softball Women’s National Team (WNT) will train for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games using Blast sensor technology. The data captured will allow players and coaches to compare hitting trends and analyze and improve timing, attack angle and bat speed.
“As our program begins to find ways to measure athletes’ levels of success and athleticism, it’s important for us to have benchmarks that young softball players can aspire to reach,” said USA WNT Head Coach, Ken Eriksen.
“The best players in the world can do things no others can. This technology can help make some of those intangibles more distinguishable.”
The collaboration will also bring sensor use to over 120,000 teams at USA softball-sanctioned events. This will allow youth players to start leveraging the technology at an early age to better develop their hitting skills and in-game performance.
“As the game of softball continues to evolve, more and more athletes and coaches are looking for tools to help them further develop their skills,” said USA Softball Chief Executive Officer, Craig Cress.
“As the National Governing Body of Softball, USA Softball is always looking for ways to help grow the game at the grassroots level, which in turn develops those athletes who are in the pipeline for the National Team Program”
Amateurs can get in on this, too. Check out our overview of connected tech to up your batting skills.
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