Methods for fabricating a 3D braided material and exemplary 3D braided material for sporting implements are disclosed. The exemplary braids can be incorporated into any sporting implements, such as, baseball bats, lacrosse sticks, hockey sticks, rackets, helmets, and other protective equipment. The example sporting implement can be constructed, partially or entirely, with a braided three dimensional structure. The 3D braided material can be a multi-directional layup having tows oriented in three directions (X, Y and Z) and also at any angle created by the combination of two or three directions. A single woven preform can be formed that can have a near net shape of the formed product, with the fibers oriented in a way that will be optimal for the particular application.

A gripping pad that serves as a gripping aid to be worn on one or both hands for gripping tools, such as a hammer, and athletic equipment, such as baseball bats, golf clubs, hockey sticks, dumbbells, and barbells. The gripping pad has four finger holes, each finger hole accommodating one of the four fingers of a hand. The gripping pad can have a descending edge that wraps around the “knob” of a baseball bat when gripping the bat. This helps a batter to hold the bat lower along the handle, while also cushioning the knob, thereby preventing the knob from injuring the hamate bone of the batter’s hand. Hamate bone fractures are among the more common upper extremity injuries seen in baseball, as well as in golf and racquet sports. The gripping pad is made from compressible vibration-absorbing material, such as silicone rubber, which feels soft, but is also sturdy.

The present invention is a baseball and softball hitting training device that prevents early arm extension, early wrist release, swinging the bat from the outside to the inside, throwing the back shoulder toward the plate, or otherwise casting the hands during a swing. The device comprises a support block with one or more grooves, a horizontal bar mounted perpendicular to the support block, a flag indicator connected perpendicular to the horizontal bar, and one or more attachment straps.

The present disclosure discloses a device for efficiently extracting adaptively selected contactless multi-player heart rates includes: an acquisition module that covers a court to obtain videos from a plurality of angles during players training; a valid player obtaining module configured to remove players with low contributions to training and games in the videos; a facial ROI extraction module configured to detect whether the facial ROIs of valid players contain perfect eye region features, and use the facial ROIs containing the eye region features as best facial ROIs for heart rate extraction; and an analysis and estimation module configured to analyze the detected best facial ROIs by using blind source separation, and estimate a RGB signal by a JADE algorithm to obtain the heart rate values of the valid players.

A swing training aid according to various aspects of the present technology may comprise batting glove having a securing strap connected on a first end to a wrist portion of the batting glove. The securing strap is configured to move between an unconnected position and a connected position wherein the securing strap is secured to a backside of the batting glove to hold the fingers in a gripping position. The securing strap may be configured to be removably connected on a second end to one or more connectors located on the backside of the glove.

An exercise rating and improvement system comprising: a feature amount extraction unit for extracting, from information obtained from a subject, a feature amount about exercise efficiency; an rating unit for rating exercise efficiency of the subject by comparing the extracted feature amount and a feature amount to be compared; and an improvement information providing unit for providing, on the basis of the rating result, information such that the feature amount of the subject approaches the feature amount to be compared.

The invention describes a bat for baseball or softball having a composite or metallic outer barrel and an insert assembly formed from composite or metallic materials and soft foam materials. The invention describes a number of embodiments of the insert assembly which may include adjustable floating or fixed power cones and adjustable sleeves, as well as a dual wall construction with the radially outer wall having an annular gap to allow limited directional flex of the radially outer wall of the insert assembly upon impact with a ball.

Protective equipment for protecting a portion of a user's body (such as a leg guard for protecting part of a user's leg) may include a cap configured to cover a first portion of a user's body and a cap-extension element connected to an end of the cap and configured to cover at least another portion of the user's body. The cap-extension element is removable from the cap and connectable to the cap via an attachment mechanism. The attachment mechanism may include a tab element on the cap-extension element that connects to a socket element on the cap. The protective equipment may include a cap liner attached to the cap, a cap-extension liner attached to the cap-extension element, and the attachment mechanism may include liner-attachment elements on the liners.

The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to sport's equipment comprising of “thin film” and “flexible electronics” that mimic and conform to the assembly components of traditional, non-interactive, sport's equipment. The layers of the equipment contain electrical and computing circuits in the form of one or more of an active mesh, active stitching, and/or active piping that mimics components otherwise made of leather, fabric, yarn or other non-conductive materials of a sport's equipment. Further provided for is the use of a suitable wireless technology to transmit the data collected by the digitally active implements to an external computer, which is capable of receiving the data to perform a simulation or computation for a sporting exercise.

A method of making a ball bat may include forming a bat frame with a handle and an inner barrel structure, providing spacer elements extending radially outwardly from the inner barrel structure, and forming a barrel shell having a main barrel and a tapered section. An inner diameter in the tapered section may be equal to an outer diameter of a first one of the spacer elements. The method may include mechanically locking the barrel shell to the bat frame by passing the handle through the barrel shell and moving the barrel shell toward the inner barrel structure until the barrel shell contacts the first one of the spacer elements. A gap is maintained between an outer diameter of the inner barrel structure and the barrel shell. The barrel shell may deflect during a hit to create a trampoline effect, while the inner barrel structure limits the deflection.