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Beware of Those Dangerously High Workloads for
Pitchers
Three
Simple Approaches to Minimize the Risk of Injury
As a pitching performance instructor,
one of the most popular questions I get is about
pitching workloads, or innings pitched.
How many innings should I pitch?
How many innings is too much?
Boy, my arm hurt after only pitching
3 innings the other night. What should I do?
What Causes Arm Problems?
Well, that’s a pretty complicated
question. I don’t feel you can eliminate them. I
feel you can manage your work and minimize the risk
of injury.
I like to tell folks there are three
areas that are most likely to increase the risk of
arm problems for pitchers.
-
Inefficient Pitching Mechanics
-
Too high of a workload for that
pitcher
-
Improper or lack of conditioning
specific to pitching
I believe there is also a genetic
factor to this whole pitching injury thing. We are
all built a little differently, so some of us are
more prone to problems than others.
Inefficient Pitching Mechanics
Throwing a baseball down a mound at
max effort certainly puts a lot of stress and strain
on all the joints in the body. Especially the
shoulder and elbow.
It only makes sense that we would
like to improve our pitching mechanics (the
efficiency or inefficiency of our body working to
throw the ball) and minimize the stresses on the
body.
What are efficient mechanics?
Well, so called pitching gurus around
the country have been debating this for years.
I like to explain them to our
students in a simple way.
First off, not all pitchers should
look the same. Just as our signatures are different,
our throwing delivery is different.
Efficient pitching mechanics are
pretty simple really. Just not easy to perform
consistently.
As coaches, we should teach
principles, not style.
Here is a brief summary of our
pitching principles.
Number one, the pitcher needs to
generate energy. How do we do that? Well, we use
momentum to get the energy started. Think of how
Happy Gilmore got his “golf swing” going. He ran
into the ball.
Think of how the javelin thrower runs
up before he or she releases the javelin. Why do
they do it?.......because they can! It’s all about
momentum. Look at what cricket pitchers do to throw
the cricket ball…they run up and throw it.
The principle is a little foreign to
some folks. The old-school teach is to get your
balance point. Pause at the top. Well, if an
outfielder tried to do that, or a short-stop, they
wouldn’t be playing that position very long.
Let mother nature do a lot of the
work.
The next step in efficient mechanics
is keeping your posture stable. Think of what they
say about some of the better Major League pitchers
like Mark Prior. “Gee, he looks like he’s throwing
so effortless.” Well, the more your body is flopping
around, the more stress and strain you’ll have on
your joints. The uglier the delivery. Think of the
Olympic hurdler. Their heads stay so steady even
when they are going over the hurdle. All their
energy is directed to the finish line.
Our finish line is the catcher’s
glove.
Other aspects of efficient mechanics
are timing mechanisms, torque for power and a
controlled glove side to help with your control.
A lot of the problems we see with
pitchers deliveries can be traced back to the
pitcher’s body. If the pitcher has limitations and
restrictions in terms of flexibility, strength,
endurance, etc, then the body will compensate. This
creates the quirkiness we see sometimes. This hurts
your ability to make all the pieces work in
sequence.
Bottom line, if your body is working
out of sequence, you put on more stress on your
joints.
Too High of A Workload for that Pitcher
There have been volumes written about
how many pitches or innings are appropriate for
different age pitchers.
To put it simply, when the pitcher
falls into muscle failure, the ligaments and tendons
are working over-time to support the joint. When
those go, then you have a serious problem with the
bones.
Let me explain.
Think of muscle failure as running
out of gas.
I think of muscle failure when I’m
skiing and my legs are burning so much I can go on
any more.
Or when I do an arm curl with weights
and can’t get those last two reps up, the muscles
have failed.
It happens in pitching too.
We might not feel it the way we do
with weight lifting or skiing, but they get
fatigued. Now, just because we are pitching, people
think the arm is the only part of the body that gets
tired.
Wrong.
I have found that most pitchers,
especially the youth pitchers, tire in their core
region. The abs, low back, the obloquies and upper
legs. Once those go, what do you think does most of
the work?
You guessed it. The shoulder and
elbow.
What is most likely to get injured?
The abs? The butt muscles? Of course the smaller
muscles in the shoulder and elbow.
I can’t really give you exact numbers
when muscle failure happens while you are pitching,
but look for signs in the pitcher’s delivery. Not
following through as much. Decreases in velocity and
location are also good signs that the pitcher is
tired.
You won’t get that back any time in
the near future either.
My rule of thumb for pitchers I coach
is about 15 to 20 pitches per inning. No more than
25 in any inning. If the pitcher exceeds 25 pitches
in any one inning, I would pull him.
After the pitcher has had high
workloads and is possibly in muscle failure, then he
should stay off the mound for a minimum of 3
days. If the workloads are higher, say 50 or more in
one day, I would not have my own sons pitch
competitively off the mound for 4 to 5 days.
Especially if they are younger. Even if they playing
for the championship of the youth league world
series, I would not take the risk.
Bottom line. Don’t look at innings as
a barometer of workloads. Look at pitches. Do
yourself and your pitcher a favor, watch the pitch
count closely. Don’t forget the number of days rest
too. The pitcher needs to rest.
Rest doesn’t mean not throwing.
Throwing from shortstop after pitching isn’t the
same stress as pitching. Although, if a pitcher has
thrown a lot of pitches in a game, I would put him
in a position he doesn’t have to throw much, if at
all.
Improper or Lack of Conditioning Specific to
Pitching
It drives me crazy when I hear
coaches tell a kid he needs to get in the weight
room and put on some meat on his bones so he can
throw the ball faster or hit it farther.
Our society is so obsessed with
getting bigger. Bigger must be better to throw the
ball harder.
Can’t be further from the truth.
First off, most youth baseball
players don’t condition at all. All baseball players
should train if they are able bodied.
That doesn’t mean pump a bunch of
iron.
As a pitcher, you need to train your
body to handle the explosive stresses placed on it.
You need to improve the endurance in all your
joints. You need to work on flexibility. Power
training should become a passion too. Don’t forget
to address balance as well.
You need to work on all of these
components of training. If you don’t, or have a
weakness in one area, it will show up in your
performance if not develop into an injury.
How do you train in flexibility,
strength and endurance, balance, and power? Well,
that’s a subject for another time. We certainly do
have the tools there to help you.
Don’t get caught up in the age thing.
We’ve all heard it. Don’t lift weights until you are
16...or whatever.
What I am saying is, you don’t need
to lift weights to gain in all these areas.
Sometimes using your own body weight is enough.
Anyone at any age can work on training with this
formula.
In fact, traditional lifting can
actually hurt you, even if you’ve been doing it for
a while. You need to be careful.
To wrap it up, to be as successful on
the playing field as you can, you need to train your
body. You need to train in a certain way to do it
correctly.
I’ve heard it said from my good
friend and elite athlete trainer, Sean Cochran,
there are no bad exercises. There are probably
exercises that are bad for baseball players.
Post Game Wrap-Up
So, I hope I’ve explained things
concise enough for you about workloads for pitchers.
You need to look at your pitch
counts, not innings. Make sure you get enough rest
between outings. Train properly in the gym and on
the field. And work on making your pitching
mechanics more efficient.
Train like a champion!
Bill Mooney
support@bioforcebaseball.com
About the
Author
Bill Mooney
is the owner and lead instructor at the BioForce
Baseball Academy in Beaverton Oregon. Here’s what a
couple of former Major League Pitchers and Pitching
Coaches say about Bill Mooney and BioForce Baseball.
“Bill Mooney is one of few
pitching coaches in the nation who has been
Certified by The National Pitching Association and
Functional Fitness, Inc. I have found that Bill is
one of the finest young pitching coaches in the
country today. His knowledge and instruction are
the most up-to-date and progressive you’ll find.
With his knowledge, teaching skills and background
Bill does an outstanding job helping pitchers
perform at their peak and remain healthy.”
~ Dr. Tom House
Dr. Tom
House is a performance expert, Former Major League Pitcher,
and
Former Major League pitching coach. Current coach
and mentor to many star major league pitchers such
as Randy Johnson. Co-founder of the National
Pitching Association
“As
a former major league pitcher, pitching coach and
former coordinator of pitching for the Montreal
Expos/Washington Nationals, I am always searching
for information and instruction that can help me
improve. Most would guess that the best, most
informative teachings come out of the professional
game, but it has been my experience that the
instructors who have dealt with hundreds of kids
from all ages really have seen what works and
doesn’t work.
Such is the case for Bill Mooney and
BioForce Baseball Academy. Having watched him
interact and teach what we know today to be right, I
would not hesitate to allow him to work with our
pitchers. To place that trust in someone is the
highest compliment I can pay to a fellow pitching
coach. Without question, Bill Mooney is an
outstanding coach and one worth learning from and
training with.”
~ Brent Strom
Brent Strom
is a
former major league pitcher and former pitching
coach for the Houston Astros and Kansas City Royals
To find out more about Bill and BioForce, go to the
website
www.bioforcebaseball.com. To contact Bill, you
can email him at
support@bioforcebaseball.com.
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