Pitch AI vs ArmTrack: tracking your arm or training it?

ArmTrack calls itself "the arm-care companion for baseball and softball players." Players log throws, intensity, pain, soreness, and stiffness, and the app returns an estimated readiness score and a plain-language recommendation for the day. It was released on the App Store in June 2026 by independent developer Milan Chauhan, who writes on the ArmTrack site that he built it after dealing with his own elbow pain as a player, and made it free with no ads and no selling of user data.

Pitch AI builds a personalized throwing program from the athlete's profile, goals, season phase, schedule, readiness, and recovery, then coordinates strength and conditioning, mechanics video feedback, pitch design tools, and nutrition tracking around it. Readiness tracking is one input to that plan rather than the whole product.

Speed is ArmTrack's clearest strength. Its listing says logging takes under 30 seconds: three 0 to 10 sliders for pain, soreness, and stiffness, a throw count, and an activity type. Recent updates added offline logging that syncs later, a weekly recap comparing throws and pain or soreness trends with the previous week, a consistency heatmap, streaks, and smarter reminders. The developer says no account is needed to start, and a browser version works on any device.

Pitch AI's daily check-in asks for more: readiness on a 1 to 5 scale, soreness, sleep hours, stress, arm freshness, and separate elbow, shoulder, and back pain ratings from 0 to 10. Throwing sessions are logged against the planned workout. It takes longer, but the extra detail is used to change that day's training, which is the trade-off.

ArmTrack publishes a methodology page explaining its score. Each log produces a base score from a weighted average of pain (weighted 3x), soreness (2x), and stiffness (1x), subtracted from 10. Half a point comes off for more than 100 throws in the latest log, for two consecutive logs over 75 throws, and for pain rising across the last three logs. The result maps to six states, from "Ready" to "Throwing Not Recommended." The page is candid that the weights are expert priors, not fitted to outcome data, and that the score is not a medical device. That level of transparency is rare and worth recognizing.

The same page lists an acute to chronic workload ratio and exponentially weighted load features as future roadmap items, so as of October 2026 workload enters ArmTrack's score through recent throw-count thresholds rather than a ratio.

Pitch AI combines two signals. The wellness check-in adjusts the day directly, and a workload engine compares acute (7-day) and chronic (28-day) throwing load using exponentially weighted moving averages, blended with the athlete's onboarding throwing history when logged data is still sparse. Target ranges vary by season phase, and the engine flags ratios above 1.5 that persist over consecutive days rather than reacting to one reading. Research supports ACWR as one part of a broader monitoring system, not a standalone injury predictor, with the EWMA version as the more sensitive calculation (Griffin et al., 2020).

ArmTrack's output is a recommendation such as a normal session, a light day, or rest. Deciding what that session contains is left to the player and coach. Its public materials do not describe a throwing program, strength plan, or drill library, which fits its stated purpose as a tracker.

In Pitch AI, the readiness and workload signals feed straight into a plan. The app can hold or reduce volume, remove high-intent throwing, or guide a gradual build when the athlete is underprepared, so the aim is to build capacity steadily instead of simply throwing less. It also tracks game pitching and applies age-based Pitch Smart rest days. Strength and conditioning, human-made drill videos, AI mechanics feedback, and pitch design tools sit in the same app.

ArmTrack lets coaches see their whole roster's readiness on one screen and invite a team with a QR code that players scan to join. We did not find any coach pricing on ArmTrack's website or App Store listing, and the listing shows no in-app purchases as of October 2026. For a youth or high school staff that mainly wants to know who is sore before practice, that is hard to beat.

Pitch AI's Coach View adds the planning side: a roster, readiness review, acute to chronic ratio trend charts per athlete, a team calendar, and coach-authored or Pitch AI programming. Team plans are $209.99 per year for 12 athletes, $419.99 for 25, and $699.99 for 50 on the web ($299.99, $599.99, and $1,000 in the iOS app).

Pitch AI prices are web prices billed through Stripe at pitch-ai.app, with U.S. App Store in-app prices in parentheses. We did not find an ArmTrack app on Google Play; ArmTrack says its browser version works on any device. Pricing can change.