Young Pitchers- Arm Injuries

[pbmedia]

I wonder if readers - or their kids or their players- have experienced arm injuries due to overuse. It is a situation that is becoming more common (or well documented anyway) these days among younger players, most notably pitchers. One such condition, dubbed "Little League Elbow," has been appearing with greater frequency. We have seen it in our work with some young athletes at Reddy-Care Physical Therapy in Great Neck, NY. Our practice hopes to conduct some additional study of the phenomenon, and would welcome any firsthand experiences readers might want to share here. Thank you.

[MSandman]

Here's a link to a thread I posted a couple years ago when my son was injured:
http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=56599&highlight=elbow+growth+plate&page=2

[scorekeeper]

Check out the latest Sports Illustrated. There’s a story in it titles “Players”. In it is referenced Lyle Micheli, Md. who uses the term “Little League Elbow” in the story. Google his name and you might find a terrific source for your study, and perhaps even save yourself some effort.

[new2thesport]

Here's a link to a thread I posted a couple years ago when my son was injured:
http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=56599&highlight=elbow+growth+plate&page=2
Wow! I just read your post! Can you finish the saga of your child's arm? I am curious on how he is doing.
I just attended a meeting (4-9-09) with the Little League President and you might be surprised(or not) on the recommedations of pitching.

Pitchers Limits-

7-8 yrs old-50 pitches
9-10 yrs old-75 pitches
11-12 yrs old-85 pitches
13-14 yrs old-95 pitches

Rest-
1-20 pitches- no rest required
21-40 pitches- 1 calendar day required
41-60 pitches- 2 calendar days required
61+ -3 calendar days and 1 game required.

I asked him about the guidlines and he said that it started a few years ago to cut down on the injuries. He stated that there was a study and that this was recommended. There is no data to show if it made it safer.
He also mentioned about "he despizes any coach that teaches the curveball at such a young age (less than 14)".

I see your son was in the limits that is set forth today and he still got injured. It makes me wonder if it needs more refining.

[shake-n-bake]

I've read through some of the topics about youth pitching injuries and it seems most of the diagnoses were relatively minor injuries. So, kudos for those folks getting their kids in to their pediatrician then eventually into a sports orthopedist prior to any serious injury developed.

I'm not an M.D., nor do I play one on tv, but seems that there's a high probability for either over-blowing or under estimating the future prognosis of these injuries. Totally understandable. It should go without saying that erroring on the caution is best and the level to which you do so sort of correlated to age.

What chaps me is when the all-knowing, devoid of medical training, and without ever seeing an x-ray, examining the kid, and having little of the story will pick one third of one sentence (can't be a full sentence or it can't be intentionally taken out of context) of a post here and come up with a long-term health and physical well-being prognosis, full psychological makeup of the parents, what sort of grades the kid will get, and his likelihood to underachieve. How his HS athlete is this and that and this is what he did - basically wrote the book on how it's done. Everyone else with kids under 13 is an idiot. And anyone with kids under 13 not buying into that "Gospel," is a flaming idiot. Truly amazing stuff.

I too would find it valuable to hear from parents/kids that've gone through that a couple or more years ago, the treatment, and the level of recovery.

[scorekeeper]

I asked him about the guidlines and he said that it started a few years ago to cut down on the injuries. He stated that there was a study and that this was recommended. There is no data to show if it made it safer.
He also mentioned about "he despizes any coach that teaches the curveball at such a young age (less than 14)".

You must really be new to the sport. ;)

There is no data for more than one reason:

This isn’t something that can be turned on or off like a light switch.

Players aren’t subject to only the LL Inc rules, and may play in many other venues that have no rules.

Players are typically only pitching in LL Inc for at most 5-6 years, so most of the players who were under the program from the beginning have either quit the game, no longer pitcher, or moved on to other venues.

Its really difficult to tell when an injury first began.

There are lots of other difficulties, but in general, its going to take more than just a couple of years to compile meaningful data.

I see your son was in the limits that is set forth today and he still got injured. It makes me wonder if it needs more refining.

Its impossible to say that “X” number of pitches is safe or unsafe for everyone because everyone’s body, genetics, lifestyle, nutrition, and a whole lot of other things are so different.

Also, there are different kinds of pitching. There is the kind that is fairly stress free, where a pitcher is only throwing 8-12 pitches an inning, getting lots of rest between, and seldom having to worry about runners.

Then there’s the kind where the same amount of pitches get thrown, but under vastly different conditions. 6 pitches one inning, then 30 the next, 10 the next, 14 the next, and 30 the next is stressful. Not only are the numbers of pitches varying wildly, in at least a couple of those innings there’s going to be all kinds of runners all over the place. Also, many pitchers in the lower levels bat and run the bases too. There really no way to know the toll on a player who has to do a lot of running right in the middle of a pitching performance.

IOW, there aren’t any easy answers, and that’s why its always safer to err on the side of caution. There are plenty of pitchers in the ML who didn’t start pitching at 8YO, 10YO, 12YO, and more than just 1 or 2 who didn’t throw very much at all until they were fully grown.

[Harley]

If you are interested, you can read the 1965 study made by Dr. Joel Adams.

http://www.drmikemarshall.com/ChapterNine.html