Printed electronics are capable of bringing continued innovation to the sports world – and America’s favorite pastime is no exception. Technologies such as printed heaters, biometric sensors, force-sensing resistors, and e-stimulation are all capable of helping players perform better and recover faster, whether it be during training, on game day, or in the off-season.

Training Season

Training season can be brutal depending on the climate. Most school teams begin their spring training in February or March, and in the northern states, the temperature for spring training could be below freezing.

Printed electronics like flexible heaters can easily be added to clothing to help keep players warm in those early months. Flexible heaters can be added to jerseys, cleats, and gloves – they’re wireless, flexible, and lightweight, which mean they easily move with you as you stretch and bend out on the field.

At the same time, biometric sensors can help measure performance and health data to help inform players and coaches. Biometric sensors can provide data such as heart rate, breathing rate, and muscle activity. Further, they can use an algorithm to combine these metrics in order to calculate the player load. The player load, where players turn while building momentum to prepare for swing, can, and can be a useful tool for measuring how hard a player is working.

Coaches can keep an eye on how hard their players are pushing themselves, too. By monitoring biometrics from the bench, coaches can warn players if they may be overexerting themselves and intervene in time to prevent injuries.

Game Day

Need to know how much force is in your swing on Game Day?  Sensors can be added to gloves and baseball pants to calculate muscle activity in real-time, giving players the feedback they need in order to adjust and improve in the next inning, or even between every swing.

Motion sensors can also be incredibly useful during the game. Sensors in cleats could sense if you’re pivoting your foot correctly while batting, or record how fast you’re getting from base to base.

Pitchers can wear sleeves incorporated with biometric sensors to measure muscle exertion when throwing the ball. Many baseball players, especially pitchers, become injured from overexerting while throwing.  By wearing a motion-sensing sleeve, pitchers can train their arms to follow the right posture and positions.

Force sensing resistors, or FSRs, could be added to the bat to help players find that sweet spot.  By adding an FSR matrix to the barrel of the bat, coaches can train their players to hit the ball in the center of the bat.  This method of coaching can lead to perfect line drives every swing.

It’s not just players that would benefit from printed electronics on game day! The fan experience can be enhanced, too. For example, printed antennas can be placed inside of baseballs and trigger lighting and sound effects when the ball crosses a certain distance threshold. When someone hits a home run and the ball passes over a sensor at the fence, it could instantly trigger a fireworks display or other lighting effects to go off throughout the field.

Baseball Injuries and Treatments

One of the more common injuries in baseball is a tear of the UCL, the ligament that connects your humorous to the ulna, or your upper arm bone to the lower arm bone.  Although this injury typically doesn’t require surgery, it can be extremely painful for weeks to months.

Printed heaters can assist in off seasons when recovering from injuries, too. Research has shown that adding heat to injured areas can improve recovery outcomes.

Electronic stimulation (e-stim) is another way physical therapists get players back on the field quickly. Simiarly, while E-stim helps with muscle recovery and pain management, TENS treatments target the nerves instead of the muscles. However, traditionally, these devices involve bulky wires and messy gels.

Thanks to screen printed electronics, a dry electron can be used for these e-stim and TENS treatments instead.  A dry electrode can send electrical impulses into the mussels by skin to skin contact, eliminating the need for wires. This means that while a printed e-stim or TENS device is wireless, portable, and lightweight, it also operates without the need for gel on the skin.

Meet the Author

Ashley Foster was previously the Digital Marketing Specialist on the BTI Team.