Baseball is coming back! With so much uncertainty around how the course of the season will play out amidst the ongoing pandemic, all you ballplayers out there need to be prepared for anything.
Hopefully, every baseball player at every level has dedicated this time off to improving physical strength and mobility in order to adequately prepare for the upcoming season. (If you haven’t, consider this a wake up call and reach out to me ASAP!)
All players, coaches, and parents should be on high alert for injury as we get dirt on our gloves again. We have some data from the 2011 NFL lockout about increased injury rates when play resumed, so we must be highly vigilant about the shape players are in when they take the field again, and how they ramp up. My personal concern is that we could see an increase in elbow injuries in our pitchers, if appropriate precautions are not taken to maintain player fitness and progressively build volume.
As a baseball player, and specifically as a pitcher, what can you be doing right now to get back in shape and reduce your risk of elbow pain as play resumes? There are three important categories that we can optimize to decrease the risk of elbow injury:
Throwing volume
Efficient force transfer through the kinetic chain
Efficient mechanics
Elbow pain arises in baseball players when an acute workload outweighs chronic workload. In simpler terms, a pitcher can experience elbow pain when they throw too much without building up an adequate base. For instance, if a pitcher has only been throwing 25 pitches over the course of 4 bullpen sessions, and is then asked to throw 50 pitches in a game situation — that’s a recipe for trouble. My best advice for athletes that I work with is to be over-prepared for the demands of the sport. You want to feel so confident when you step out on the field that when you dig deep, you know you have the capacity in the tank to succeed without risking injury.
So what can you do to reduce the risk of elbow pain and injury? Continue to throw, and when a specific timeline for return arises, gradually build up your throwing volume. That way, any one particular game will not overwhelm your capacity. Always be over prepared for the demands of the game!
Elbow pain is tricky in the sense that it often does not come from the elbow. Baseball requires an efficient transfer of energy from your feet to your hand for optimal power output. If we have any weak links in the chain, it can expose the elbow by placing higher demands on it to create force.
Here are some awesome ways to build strength throughout your chain and prevent elbow pain:
Perform explosive med ball drills
Get really strong in lunge and deadlift patterns
Perform push ups and pull ups with pristine form
If you have any questions on your form, how to program these into your workouts, how much weight you should be doing, and what your goals should be, hit me up for a consultation.
Lastly, it is crucial to evaluate your throwing mechanics right now, and determine if your technique is optimal for you and your body. Mechanical inefficiencies can both decrease performance and increase elbow injury risk. Thus, it’s critical to use this time to clean things up. We could talk for hours about pitching mechanics, so I’m not going to dive into detail here. But the most important takeaway is that suboptimal mechanics can contribute to elbow pain and decreased performance, so reach out to me to set up a consultation to review your throw.
Elbow pain in baseball players is highly prevalent already without a forced hiatus. Undergo the necessary steps to decrease your risk of elbow pain as you prepare to start your season!
— Dr. James
For a limited time, we’re offering an introductory special for young athletes that includes a virtual consult with Dr. James to review athlete history, screen movement patterns, identify goals, and map out a training program. It also includes 4 weeks of at-home personalized, sport-specific programming. Find out more here.