Reactive agility and pitching performance improvement in visually impaired competitive Italian baseball players: an innovative training and evaluation proposal

Purpose: Visual input significantly affects kinesthesis skills and, hence, visually impaired individuals show less developed sensorimotor control, especially in an unfamiliar outdoor environment. Regular blind baseball practice can counteract such a deficit but, given the complex kinetic chain model required, a targeted workout proposal is needed to improve the main athletic gesture performance. On these premises, we investigated, for the first time, the running and pitching performance of a competitive Italian blind baseball team. Methods: Baseball player evaluations were conducted during the regular competitive season through quantitative tools and parameters such as Libra Easytech sensorized proprioceptive board, goniometric active range of motion, chronometric speed, and pitching linear length. Moreover, the perceived physical exertion was assessed by the Borg CR10 scale. Consequently, an adapted athletic training protocol was designed and tested on the field during the in-season phase, with the aim to strengthen sport specific-gesture coordination and efficacy as well as to prevent injuries in a real game-frame. Results: Quantitative assessments showed an improvement in ankle stability index, bilateral upper limb and hip mobility, reactive agility, running braking phase control during second base approaching, and auditory target-related pitching accuracy along with a decrease in perceived physical exertion. Conclusions: This protocol might represent an effective and easily reproducible training and evaluation approach to tailor management of visually impaired baseball players, and safely improve their athletic performance under the supervision of an adapted exercise specialist.