The Tech Tool That’s Helping Elite Pitchers Throw Harder and Recover Faster
“No body part has been as scrutinized, analyzed, and mythologized as the baseball pitcher’s throwing arm.”
Stack Media looks into the EMS device that is changing the way baseball pitchers train and recover. They interviewed Kyle Boddy, owner of Driveline Baseball, to better understand how this technology is revolutionizing the sport. Read the full article here.
How does Driveline manage to keep players healthy while they grind their way through a high-intensity program filled with 90-minute workouts? They make recovery a priority. “Our guys are training harder than your average baseball pitcher,” Boddy says. “Potentially, that’s putting themselves at more risk, but 60 percent of any athlete’s training program is recovery. We have three days a week dedicated to recovery.”
Those recovery days include the use of a bevy of tools and techniques, none of which is more important than a portable electrical stimulation unit called the Marc Pro. The Marc Pro has become invaluable not only to Driveline, but to much of the baseball world. According to the company’s official website, 27 MLB teams (now 30) currently use the Marc Pro. Here’s why it is revolutionizing pitcher recovery at every level of baseball.
But many EMS units are available for purchase online, and many of them don’t carry the hefty $650 price tag of the Marc Pro. What makes the Marc Pro worth it?
According to the company, it’s their patented dynamic decaying waveform. With a traditional EMS unit, muscle contractions are sudden and severe—you feel the muscle get grabbed and then quickly released, in what is known as a “square waveform.” The Marc Pro’s dynamic decaying waveform grabs the muscles and gradually and gently releases it. From their official website: “Marc Pro’s waveform used in combination with a long pulse duration allows for non-fatiguing muscle contractions, which is critical for recovery.” Sounds like mumbo jumbo, but there’s logic behind their claim.
The harshness of square waveforms can quickly fatigue the muscles. So while you might at first be reaping the recovery benefits of EMS, extended and repeated use tires out your muscles before you achieve the full effects. That’s not the case with dynamic decaying waveforms, which create non-fatiguing muscle contractions.
Discover which professional baseball teams use Marc Pro and learn more about the technology and science behind the device.