If you were watching the Women’s College World Series in 2023 and/or 2024 you no doubt noticed that Oklahoma’s catchers had a piece of blue or red tape affixed to their chest protectors. I have heard some interesting explanations as to what it might be.

One is that it’s some sort of enlarged target for pitchers to throw to. If they’re having trouble seeing the glove, or if the catcher is trying to hide the pitch location, the pitcher can sight in on the tape and throw it there.

Another is that the tape is the pitcher’s favorite color, and it’s being used to help her feel more comfortable and confident. That’s more on the right track, but still not quite there.

Actually what it is has to do with something called motor preferences. You can learn more about it here, but I will provide a quick background of what it is and how it relates to the colored tape.

The concept of motor preferences began about 20 years ago with a French company called Volodalen. They were doing extensive research in how to help athletes in many different sports (but primarily in track and field and cycling, I believe) perform better.

Through this research they discovered that all of us have certain preferences baked into our DNA. For example, when some people run they tend to bounce or rebound lightly off the ground.

They classified these athletes as “aerial.” Others tend to be more earthbound, pulling and passing as they run, so they call them “terrestrials.”

There are other tendencies as well, which I’m not going to get into right now because while I have completed an online course I want to wait until I’ve attended the in-person training to go into it in more detail. So I don’t quite feel qualified yet to offer a deeper explanation.

Motor preferences have been used in Europe for about 20 years to determine an athlete’s natural preferences so he/she is being trained properly, both to enhance performance and prevent injury. It was brought to North America by Motor Preferences Experts, whose link I provided above.

Which brings us back to the tape on the chest protectors. The color and the orientation both have significance in how they affect the pitcher.

The color is determined by whether the athlete holds his/her breath in while performing an athletic movement or lets it out. In this case, an athlete who holds his/her breath in will have a preference for royal blue. (As I understand it not just any blue will do, it has to be royal blue.)

An athlete who empties his/her lungs during the act will have a preference for red. I’m told any general red will work. All of this has to do with the rods and cones in the eyes.

There is a test to determine whether an athlete is breath in/breath out You don’t want to just ask them. That test is proprietary so I can’t share how to perform it here but I will say it’s fairly subtle so you need to be trained in it anyway.

Once you know the color, you then test to see if the athlete’s brain organizes information horizontally or vertically. That will tell you whether to run the tape horizontally or vertically on the chest protector.

Getting back to our pitchers, if the pitcher tests breath in vertical, you would want to place a royal blue piece of tape on the chest protector in a vertical orientation. If she is breath out vertical you would place a red piece of tape vertically, and so on.

The purpose, at least as I understand it, is to help the pitcher feel more relaxed and confident before she goes into her pitch. Perhaps more focused as well, all of which will hopefully help her pitch better.

The colors and orientation isn’t just for pitchers, by the way. Hitters can put a piece of the correct tape on their bats before they get into position to help them prepare to hit. Teams can put stripes up in the dugout to help their fielders before they take the field, or fielders can put a piece of tape on their gloves.

The good news for those of us who are still learning how to test is that if you mess it up and get the color or orientation incorrect there is no negative consequence, at least as I understand it. You’re just not helping the athlete the way you were hoping to.

I hope that clears up some of the mystery around the tape. While the whole motor preferences concept has only been in the U.S. for a couple of years I think awareness is starting to grow and more organizations are starting to look into it.

Consider the colored tape the “gateway drug” into the deeper world of motor preferences and how they can help your athletes perform better and avoid significant injuries. More to come on this topic after I go through the training.