Players in red caps and baseball tees crowded the Performance Spine and Sports Medicine of Newtown office Tuesday afternoon.

No, they weren't injured. They were members of the Gywnedd Mercy College division three baseball team – gearing up for the season with with some very high-tech equipment.

The team was invited pro-bono as part of the clinic's community outreach program to demonstrate their new Performance 3D motion capture system. The equipment uses between one and eight sensors that monitor swing and body motion to determine how an athlete is performing and what they can do to improve technique and avoid injury, said the clinic's managing partner, Joseph Jimenez.

While sensor technology has been around for a long time, this specific application has been developing more in the past decade. The clinic's version, Performance 3D, is only about a month old. The equipment uses biomechanical analysis to record data about the athlete. From there, the system can make recommendations for a workout plan to strengthen weak areas and hopefully avoid future injury, Jimenez said.

Each team member had a chance to get up to bat or pitch and receive feedback from the system. The sensor on the bat tracked its velocity in three directions, among other measurements.

Zig Ziegler, co-director of sports performance, said from the data he received on just one sensor, he could tell if there was indication of a physical issue, such as weak hands or shoulders, that could lead to an injury down the road.

One of the team's coaches, Paul Murphy, said what the clinic set up for the team was much more than they anticipated. 

"It's a pretty amazing thing," Murphy said. "We're going to start working individually with guys on their swing flows."

He said the team will take their results as a baseline for the season and see how much it helps them train, which they've only begun to do. 

"We've got our work cut out for us," he said.

In addition to the high-tech help, the team also received chiropractic adjustments, participated in a short yoga session and listened to a lecture about injury prevention. 

The lecture, led by Dr. Kevin Hsu, gave players information about how to tell the difference between pain from an injury and from simple soreness, the importance of core strength in preventing injury and common baseball injuries and how to prevent them.

John Barrington, a 23-year-old senior on the team from Levittown, said he was shocked at everything the team was able to do that day.

"I was not expecting that at all," he said. "I wish I would've done it earlier."

Barrington said one of the hardest stations for him was yoga, which he had never attempted before. Every move for him was "extremely tough," but he plans to do it again.

Marek Sulzynski, director of practice management, said the clinic is eager for other local teams, even those in area high schools, to try out their equipment and see what it can do for their performance and injury prevention.

"We try to be very holistic in our treatment approach," Sulzynski said.