It is that time of year again baseball season has arrived along with the strained hamstring, aching low back, sore shoulder and elbow pain. This is a common theme in baseball one that can easily be reduced by doing some of the right things in preparation for a long season.

I am always trying to help my baseball players understand the balance between what they do in the gym and how that will translate to the ball field. Here is a good example: Baseball players will train all winter to improve velocity and shoulder stability without understanding that they need to develop “functional arm strength” as well. Most ball players and even their coaches fail to understand the difference between arm strength and functional arm strength. What is the difference? Arm strength or what strength and conditioning coaches call shoulder stability is what we develop and train for in the gym. Functional arm strength is the combination of muscular endurance, strength, mechanics, and what I feel is the most neglected component, throwing or pitch volumes. This is the key component to why you see so many sore shoulders and elbows early on in pre-season regardless of how much strengthening and conditioning a player does.

Let me sum it up real quick on this. All injuries are not preventable just reducible. However their needs to be a better understanding by baseball coaches especially at the high school and collegiate levels on how to properly transition their players to the diamond in early season, especially their pitchers. This is where we see the most problems. In the past five years I have seen an alarming number of ulna collateral tears or “Tommy John Injuries”. I have seen four under the age of thirteen. That is more than I saw in TOTAL of the previous five years at all age levels. This is unquestionably a bi-product of to much too soon and a lack of understanding of the functional progressions of throwing, pitch counts and pitch volumes. Players are always confused because they believed that a strength program, long toss and pitching or throwing lessons were enough preparation to get ready for the season.

The problem lies herein: Most baseball players here in the northeast go from very limited throwing volumes to excessive throwing volumes within days of embarking on an outdoor season. AT THIS STAGE OF THE SEASON FUNCTIONAL ARM STRENGTH DOES NOT MATCH UP TO THROWING VOLUMES OR PITCH COUNT NUMBERS SO EARLY ON! I still can’t figure out why this is such a difficult thing for a coach to understand yet every year I see the same thing over and again. Failure to have pitchers transition from flat ground to the mound properly and field players long tossing the first day outside at 200 feet in 40 degree weather epitomizes the problems. Every year I hear of more labrums exploding like eggs being dropped from a two story building! Just to put it mildly.