Date

5-20-2026

Department

School of Health Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Health Sciences (PhD)

Chair

Joshua Dexheimer

Keywords

Baseball, Softball, Hitting, Virtual reality, Warm-up

Disciplines

Sports Sciences

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the acute effects of the four warm-up conditions of virtual reality (VR), heavy bat, light bat, and game bat on hitting metrics in collegiate baseball and softball players. Specifically, this research investigated whether a perceptual-cognitive warm-up using virtual reality produced performance outcomes comparable to traditional physical warm-ups in key physical hitting metrics, including bat speed, time to contact, launch angle, and exit velocity. Each participant experienced all four warm-up conditions in a within-subjects, repeated measures design. Performance was measured using Blast Motion and HitTrax technologies, and statistical analysis was conducted using a repeated-measures ANOVA for both raw and difference- score variables. Across all four hitting metrics, the analyses revealed no statistically significant differences among the warm-up conditions. Bat speed results approached η significance, F(2,58)= 3.01, P=.057, 2= .094, indicating a directional pattern in which the virtual reality warm-up produced the largest negative deviation from game-bat performance. Time to contact, launch angle and exit velocity difference scores showed small effect sizes and within-condition variability, with no reliable evidence of differential transfer across the warm-up conditions. All findings suggest that, within the scope of this study, virtual reality did not enhance immediate hitting performance relative to physical warm-ups and may warrant further investigation regarding its potential impact on bat speed transfer.

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