08/10/2023
Over the past 10-15 years, there has been a large increase in the occurrence of injuries to young athletes.
Shoulder and elbow injuries are up 500% in baseball and softball players.
If we are going to slow this down, we are going to have to do more than just manage pitch counts!
Here are 4️⃣ things you can do as a player to keep you arm healthy and lower the risk of injury
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1️⃣Throw More, Pitch Less
Tournament baseball and showcases are here to stay.
As long as there's money to be made and people continue to buy the product, they'll continue.
Young players are pitching more than ever before (high stress) and playing catch less than ever before (low stress).
This is the exact opposite of what you should be doing.
Throwing volumes should be 75% low-intensity catch play and 25% high-intensity competition reps.
All players are doing today is competing with a volume of high-intensity reps that is way too high for their throwing endurance of low-intensity reps.
If you're competing on the weekends, you should be playing catch at least four days a week.
2️⃣Get Stronger
Young people are weaker than ever
In a 2016 study by researchers at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, which analyzed data from 50 studies involving a total of 25,000 children aged 5 to 16 from across the world.
The study found that children’s handgrip strength, a measure of overall muscle strength and development, has declined significantly since the 1980s, with the greatest declines observed among children aged 6 to 12.
The importance of strength training for young players has never been higher
3️⃣Develop Healthy Arm Care Habits
Arm care habits are like tooth brushing habits.
Brushing your teeth every day doesn't guarantee that you won't get cavities, but it greatly reduces the likelihood of getting them compared to never brushing your teeth or brushing them sporadically.
Healthy arm care habits can include but are not limited to band exercises, wrist weight exercises, Spinner stabilization exercises, low-intensity weighted ball throws, and water bag carries, to name just a few.
It's good practice to hit on a couple of these exercise buckets daily as well as pre-throwing before competition.
4️⃣Manage Pitch Counts
Pitch counts and high-intensity throwing should be managed within competition, especially at the lower levels.
While not perfect, MLB pitch smart guidelines is a good place to gain an understanding of the limitation of high intensity throws per age division as well as amount of rest before high intensity throws again.
As a simple general rule, I tell our parents that however many high intensity throws are made, that is the hours of rest needed before high intensity throwing again.
Again, not a perfect solution but an idea to better inform decisions.
The only problem is that you probably aren't getting an accurate measurement of the high intensity throws from just pitch counts.
Did you warm up before the game?
Did you warm up between innings?
All of these throws factor into chronic workload.
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That’s it
To review, throwing overuse injuries are out of control. If we ever want to solve the problem we need to:
- Throw More, Pitch Less
- Get Stronger
- Develop Healthy Arm Care Habits
- Manage Pitch counts
As a parent, these are all things you can do! Do not wait for anyone else to take care of your kid!
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