The SPARK Stable: Stud throwers' corner

I've worked with a lot of overhead athletes so far in my career and I continue to see some recurring themes that concern me.

Here's a quick list of the issues I come across and what you can do to rehab recurring injuries, prevent more problems and maximize your performance for the long term.

#1. Almost every young thrower we see is lacking some significant range of motion in their dominant shoulder. The biggest problems usually show up in what we call 'internal rotation' especially with the arm in the late cocking and early acceleration phases. This lack of mobility asks the muscles of the rotator cuff to work harder than is normally needed to slow the entire arm. This leads to increased fatigue, decreased arm speed and shorter outtings. Over the course of a season, this will lead to less time on the mound, more time needed between appearances and ultimately increases overall risk for major injury.

#2. Invariably, we also find significant decreases in the strength of low and mid traps as well as the external rotator muscles. When operating normally these muscles keep the bones and ligaments of shoulder complex working in perfect harmony. Maximal performance with minimal risk for injury. Think about it: able to throw hard, often and with minimal pain. THAT is elite level performance.

#3. Not enough rest. Most of our clients are the best of the best. Our pitchers throw the hardest and with the best stuff at whatever their age. This is a great canvas for us to work on. The issue is that they are routinely trotted out to pitch with minimal rest and in some cases sooner than they should. Coaches are usually well-meaning in that they want to maximize their chances of competing but sometimes at the expense of long term health and performance of the pitcher.

In addition to all of the manual physical therapy techniques we use maximize pitcher performance, there are a few simple things we have all of our clients do that helps us get the optimal balance of stability and mobility we need to perform at peak levels: lots of stretching of the anterior muscles (like the pecs), stretching the posterior cuff and capsule and strengthening the external rotator muscles. In addition we teach our athletes to recognize the signs of fatigue to lookout for so they can best manage their pitch counts and become comfortable with communicating with coaches and parents about their pain or fatigue.

Our ultimate goal is to see pitchers before they have any major injury so that we can pick out small issues we can fix and train them to completely avoid the injuries that will sideline them for extended periods.