The buzz around SQAIRZ’s baseball and softball shoes reached a fever pitch with the release of the first peer-reviewed clinical study demonstrating their effectiveness in early 2024. The key takeaway: a whopping 60.5% of study participants improved exit velocity simply by switching to SQAIRZ.
How exactly does SQAIRZ accomplish such impressive results? We asked Chad Miller, co-founder of Slugger Science and the Louisville Slugger Hitting Science Center, to break down the biomechanics of a swing and explain how SQAIRZ’s science-backed footwear design helps players overcome common problems to realize their full potential.
It starts with balance
There are three major components of a swing: balance, direction, and timing. Balance comes before direction, and direction comes before timing. This means that if you don’t have good balance from the outset, you lose control over direction and timing.
The most critical example of this is during the load—when you shift your weight backwards to create tension that will be released when you swing the bat. If your balance is off during that initial load, there’s no way to regain it. From there, your direction and timing will be thrown off.
The importance of foot position
Players tend to fall into two types of foot profiles. A varus profile leans away from the big toe, pulling it off the ground. Starting in a varus position pushes your tibia back during a swing, which causes the knee to get stuck in the load. A valgus profile leans the other way, lifting the pinky toe. Starting in this position pinches the hip, pushing you forward. In both situations, you’re setting off a chain reaction that includes compensatory issues. That’s because your body is very intelligent and will make adjustments based upon what’s happening with the foot.
Gaining balance with SQAIRZ
Both the varus and valgus profiles are referred to as “deformities,” depending on how extreme they are. If you have less than a 90% deformity—which is the vast majority of the general population—SQAIRZ shoes will put your foot into a neutral position and address the issues that stem from your foot. The wider toe box allows your toes to splay naturally, immediately improving your balance. It also releases your Achilles tendon, which is attached to your hamstrings, which are in turn attached to your gluteus minimus and maximus muscles. That release allows for a free flow of movement. Now you’re able to get into the proper position in your upper body, such as keeping the chin above the belly button to establish a better rotational axis.
The kinetic sequence
Another way to appreciate the importance of the feet is by looking at the order of operations during a swing—or the kinematic sequence. Your hips fire before your shoulders, and your shoulders before your hands. What you don’t want is for the center rotational axis to be forwards, backwards, or off to one side. That puts you off balance, can make your arms move outwards, and prevent you from rotating as fast as you could.
Your ability to get into the proper upper body position consistently rests on your ability to put your big toe, your pinky toe, and your heel on the ground. If one of those elements is off, you’ll wobble like a three-legged stool. That’s the case whether you’re male or female, playing baseball or softball. The good news is that you can solve this simply by putting on a pair of SQAIRZ.
The power of the sweet spot
Without balance, you also limit the kinetic energy you create with the ground and send through the bat. Our research has found that hitters lose up to 11% of kinetic energy through the back foot and up to 8% of kinetic energy through the front foot. Before you’ve even made a swing decision, you could potentially lose up to 19% of your kinetic energy transfer by simply not having a good ground force connection.
My colleague Heather Keepers says that every hitter needs to find the sweet spot on the bat, and every hitter needs to find the sweet spot of their foot as well. SQAIRZ shoes shift the foot into the sweet spot, setting up success throughout our swing. When my team tested the prototypes for SQAIRZ baseball and softball shoes, we saw exit velocities jumping 4.3 miles per hour on average, or about 40 feet in potential distance. No other shoe does that.
A strong, faster, more accurate swing is just a click away, shop game-elevating SQAIRZ baseball & softball footwear.