Pitching-
Arm Care/Prevention Discussion
“Sooner
or later the arm goes bad, It has to.. Sooner or later you have to start
pitching in pain.” – Whitey Ford
Whatever sport that you
are coaching or playing, almost everyone will tell you the risk that goes along
with the game that they play. It seems like athletes seem to brush off the
ideas of injuries, but it is a likely thing that will happen. It appears to me
that almost every athlete has experienced some sort of injury in their athletic
career. In the athletics sphere currently, football is getting a bad rep for
concussions, while prior to that it was baseball with the aluminum bats that
brought injury risks due to the high exit velocity of the ball off of the bat. But
once the bats changed, injuries went down and it changed the amateur game of
baseball. For baseball, the injury that took over from the scares of the
aluminum bat exit velocity has been Tommy John surgery.
For
those of you that are not familiar with the surgery, it is a surgery that
reconstructs the ulnar collateral ligament. The surgery is a surgical graft
procedure where the UCL is replaced with a tendon, from either the person’s
body, a donor, or from a cadaver. This surgery was first done in 1974 with
pitcher Tommy John. Thus, how the surgery is most commonly referred to today. John
had a 1 in 100 chance of success with the initial surgery, and it was a
success. A miracle that has brought hope to many athletes who have had an ulnar
collateral ligament injury.
This winter I have been studying pitchers heavily, to
learn more and to soak up information as quickly as I can to improve as a
baseball coach. What I was researching was movements by the best of the best pitchers
of all time and the current era. What I found were two helpful places that made
me want to do more research on arm care prevention. One site I fell upon was
Chris O’ Leary’s. He studies professional baseball players and is currently a
college coach on the NAIA level. What I found from his research is truly
fascinating. His research in regards to pitching that I found interesting was
with timing and how the baseball is pointed. The other resource that I found
interesting was Dan Blewett’s “Dear Baseball Gods,” podcast on arm care
prevention. Dan has had two different UCL tears and has a lot of interesting
points on how to prevent this from happening. The points that I found
interesting that he discussed were weight lifting and overuse of the pitching
arm. Each of these points I will discuss. At the end of the blog I will put
their research in the notes section of the blog for everyone to listen or read.
Timing
Timing is the key to any good movement in baseball. For
pitchers it is getting into a position to where you can whip the arm through
and release all of the energy that you are trying to put into the pitch. For
any effective pitcher this is key. Although this is a fact, there are many
pitchers who may have a flat arm. This can cause severe injuries if not taken
care of quickly. With the use of still photographs and video, it is easier now
more than ever to help prevent arm injuries. For example, let’s look at the
picture of Stephen Strasburg. At foot plant Strasburg looks fine with the
exception of his arm. His arm is flat, and Strasburg has had issues with his
elbow in the past.
Now let’s look at Clayton Kershaw. It is important to
note that Kershaw has had an injury before, but it has been a back issue. Let’s
look at how his timing is. Now compare and contrast the difference at foot
plant between the two. Kershaw is synced up well with his front foot, whereas
Strasburg is not. Timing is an essential key for success for any pitcher at any
level, and it may also prevent arm injury.
Point the ball to 2nd or
Center Field
It
is almost a universal saying for teaching pitchers to point the ball to 2nd
base or center field. Matter of fact, it was initially believed to help prevent
arm injury to do so. But Chris O’ Leary has discussed that this could be a
reason why the number of UCL injuries have gone up. For the sake of this point,
pretend to point the ball to 2nd base or Center Field right now. I
bet that you feel your throwing elbow get tighter. Now I want you to look back
at the picture of Mr. Kershaw, notice that the ball is pointed to 1st
base. Now try that if you are a lefty, for a righty point it to 3rd
base You can look at many non-UCL torn pitchers in the big leagues and see that
they either point the ball to 1st (for lefties) or 3rd
(for righties). Perhaps this is a coincidence but I believe there is a reason
for this and it possibly may be elbow issues.
Weight Lifting
For my baseball career with lifting I have always been
told that it is long and loose muscles that players are after, and not short
and tight muscles. Now there is not an issue with lifting heavy, but I believe it
shouldn’t become a habit. Just imagine all of the stress that it puts onto the
throwing elbow. There are many players in the weight room competing to try and
lift the heaviest, but there comes a price. And most coaches don’t want their
pitchers or players to look like they just stepped out of a Gold’s Gym. I also
believe that heavy lifting has a reason for arm injuries with baseball, and it
should be looked into.
Overuse
This is a topic that I find to be almost universal.
Overuse of throwing, or in any aspect of the game is dangerous. If a player has
been playing or practicing for almost every single month, I believe that their
injury risk goes up. There are only so many bullets left in a pitchers arm. That
is why I believe that pitchers should take at least one month off, but no more
than two. In the down time from pitching they can visualize themselves pitching
and do arm care work such as J-bands or lightweights for pitching activities.
Another thing that I believe is interesting is how many baseball players
strictly play baseball. I believe growing up, many baseball players should play
other sports, not only is it good for them to try new things, but it also takes
care of their bodies. There was also a stat that I remember reading regarding
first round draft picks in the MLB Draft, and it said that the majority of
those players that were drafted in the first round were multi-sport athletes.
If I had one thing to do over in my career, it would have been to not
specialize to a sport so early.
In conclusion, I am not saying that each of these
sections are what is causing arm injuries within the game of baseball. It is
just research that I have done this past fall and winter. . I hope that this
post can open up the discussion more on arm care. As always I am excited to
hear your feedback and opinions on this topic. I also hope everyone has a great
New Year holiday, and the best for 2018!
Notes
Comments
Post a Comment