How To Evaluate The Cause Of Pitching Arm Injuries
by Dick Mills on October 07, 2008
When a pitcher has an arm injury, what areas should be looked at in terms of his overall training and conditioning routine so as to lessen the risk in the future?
Here are some suggestions for assessing where the arm injury may have come from.
When assessing a pitcher's arm injury this is where I would look:
1. mechanics - has the pitcher been evaluated by an experienced instructor using video?
2. pitching fitness level - does the pitcher actually pitch enough from the mound?
3. bullpen practice routine/volume of pitches and intensity/individual pitch assessment
4. pitching preparation activity prior to pitching - how does the pitcher warm-up?
5. overall fitness routine in-season and off-season - does the pitcher do full body explosive exercises or weight training?
6. post game and practice bullpen recovery - what does the pitcher do after he pitches to aid recovery such as running?
I would also look at the nature and amount of auxiliary activities such as long toss, pitching drills (towel drill), flexible tubing, flat ground pitching etc. Is he doing too much of these activities and not enough pitching? Many of these activities have proven to have limited value for pitching improvement.
For all we know, the pitcher may be fatigued or slightly injured somewhere else which then causes an alteration in what would be a natural pitching movement which in turn, in an elbow injury, causes the forearm to be injured more seriously.
Another thing I would do is talk to the pitcher and ask about how he thought this happened, has it happened before, what new or different things might he have done just prior to the injury coming on. Did his coach or instructor suggest he alter his mechanics?
For many professional pitchers and amateurs as well, I fear the "treatment" of this problem is many times doing less such as taking time off to rest. By doing less, the assumption is that this is an "overuse" injury. There is always the possibility it can be an "undertrained" injury...where the pitcher is not doing enough pitching to maintain pitching fitness levels.
With the violent movement of pitching a baseball, one would think that the "trained base" for the movement (pitching itself) would have to be exceptionally high, rather than making it less by doing even less work (flat ground, low volume, drills or less than game intensity bullpens).
Pitching too little at game intensity may actually be one of the big causes of pitching arm injuries today.
The specific nature of pitching also means that auxiliary training (long toss, flat ground, stretching, drills, flexible tubing, light throwing etc.) will be useless once it gets beyond its contribution to the basic general fitness that is needed to pitch.
The whole picture has to be looked at. Currently, baseball does not do that.
Dick
