Special for azcentral sports Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:41 PM

There is the art of baseball –the pitching, the hitting, the fielding. And then there is the science of baseball.

For the Diamondbacks, Head Athletic Trainer Ken Crenshaw is the mad scientist.



Twenty years ago, a trainer’s job usually consisted of taping ankles or wrists, massaging sore muscles and icing elbows.

Today’s training methods are straight out the future.



Instead of just relying on the question, “How are you feeling?” D-Backs players now take computerized tests to measure their mental and physical states.



“We try to test every player every morning so we have a baseline of where they are at before they do any type of activity,” said Crenshaw, beginning his 9th season with the Diamondbacks.



“We have a questionnaire on a central server that each guy fills out. It may ask them how many hours they slept the night before? How did you sleep? What did you eat? And other things that a player does that will impact their score.”



One test in particular is called “Check My Level” and essentially gives the trainers a picture of how the player’s nervous system is interacting with his muscle system.



The test results are then computed into measurable numbers creating a profile for each player showing exactly how they feel and whether or not they are recovered.

And for baseball, recovery is imperative.



“We want to create the environment where they can recover because the game is so monotonous and the repetitiveness of it all. We have a lot of different methods of rest and recovery that we focus on. It is one of the most important things that we do for our players.”



A baseball season is filled with many factors that can affect a player’s health. Travel, time-zone changes and changes in altitude are three things Crenshaw says “will really turn a player’s nervous system haywire if they are not careful.”

It’s Crenshaw’s job to combat this taxing lifestyle.

“You have to look at other methods to getting them to an optimal state,” said Crenshaw, “it may boil down to, do we do a hot/cold contrast, do we do a sauna, do we do some manual or soft tissue manipulation that creates a little more stimulation or less? Or do we just want to turn their system off?”

With their demanding schedule and constantly high activity levels, sometimes de-stimulating a player is the best recovery.



One method the Diamondbacks use to help relax their players is the Energy Pod, also known as a sleep pod.



In this machine, players lie in a cushioned reclining chair and enclose themselves in a dark globe-like case.

“Players will get in the Energy Pod and can put just the sound system into their ears or have the whole globe effect. It turns everything off, everything dark and puts them in a less stimulated state and more into a recovery state. Generally they will stay in it for 30 minutes but depending how much time they have it may be longer, maybe an hour.”



The Energy Pod is not commonly used in sports in the United States, but it is these types of innovative methods that keep the Diamond ahead of the curve.