Effects of Moisture Absorption of Clothing on Pitching Speed of Amateur Baseball Players in Hot Environmental Conditions

Abstract

Hyperthermia is considered to be one of the most important factors limiting human physical performance [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. González-Alonso et al. [3] showed that high internal body temperature caused fatigue in the trained subjects during prolonged exercise in uncomfortable hot environments and time to exhaustion in hot environments was inversely related to the initial internal body temperature. Edward et al. [2] have demonstrated that the heating of the leg resulted in a marked reduction of endurance time during repeated isometric contractions in comparison with that achieved when muscle temperature was lowered. Furthermore, Olschewski and Brück [8] found that an increase in endurance time after precooling was accompanied by several muscular, cardiovascular and thermoregulatory advantages. Furthermore, Zhang and Tokura [10] found that the mean number of contractions during handgrip exercise with a hand ergometer was significantly higher after prior exposure to bright light (5000 lux) than to dim light (50 lux), and hypothesized that the prolonged duration of handgrip exercise arises because of reduced setpoint of core temperature. Therefore, fatigue in heat stress conditions might be related to higher core and active muscle temperatures, which affects the exercise performance. 1 In addition, human thermophysiological responses during exercise were greatly influenced by kinds of clothing [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Many investigators have found that hydrophilic textiles such as cotton and wool seem to have beneficial influences on thermal physiological response as well as overall comfortAbstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the hygroscopic properties of clothing material on pitching speed and some physiological responses in amateur baseball players. The experiments were performed on four male players of a regular high school baseball team and comprised two clothing types with different moisture absorption properties, namely, cotton (Type C) and polyester and polypropylene (Type P). One test session was conducted with seven innings, with a 5-minute rest time between each inning. During each inning the test subject pitched 20 balls with a 20-second interval between each pitch. From the results, in the hot environments, the trained baseball players tended to pitch balls with higher speed and less deviation of speed when wearing Type C clothing, especially in the second session. Type C clothing with a higher moisture regain compared to Type P clothing may have diminished accumulated thermal induced fatigue in the subjects.

Knit-in 3D mapping's effect on thermoregulation: preliminary results

“…Previous research indicated that clothing material and insulation to lower extremities could influence endurance by accelerating metabolic heat flow from the body to the surrounding air, thus prolonging exercise performance (Jeong & Tokura, 1995;Midorikawa, Koyama, & Tokura, 1990). Park, Tokura, and Sobajima (2006), investigated the effects of the hygroscopic properties of clothing fabric (cotton versus a synthetic blend) on pitching speeds in a hot environment. Results indicated that cotton clothing with a higher moisture regain might have diminished the accumulated thermal-induced fatigue in the subjects, leading to faster pitches.…”

A Fractal Model for Capillary Pressure of Porous Media

“…Since the limitations of postulated mechanisms, the method can apply specify fiber webs. Textile is certainly a complex multi-pore structure, which can be described as parallel pore structure or pellets accumulation pore structure (Park, 2006). The heat and moisture transfer through textile is affected by its structure.…”

Tactile hand and wear comfort of flame-retardant rayon/anti-static polyethylene terephthalate imbedded woven fabrics

“…[19][20][21] In addition, many research findings on the clothing wear comfort related to the water and moisture transport have been reported using a wearer trial test in a climatic chamber. [22][23][24][25][26][27] However, there has been no reports on the thermal comfort properties using a thermal manikin wearing clothing made from FR woven fabrics mixed with different fibers that are very popular in the market, such as modacrylic fiber, FR rayon, cotton, and anti-static PET. In previous studies, 10,11 the FR and anti-static properties as a basic physical property, and water absorption and moisture vapor permeability, as a wear comfort, were investigated using woven and knitted fabrics mixed with FR rayon and regular rayon (Excel Õ ) to examine their application possibility in working and protective clothing.…”