Avoiding Injuries in Baseball and Softball

Spring is upon us and with it school and community teams have put up their basketballs and picked up bats, balls and gloves. It is time for baseball and softball seasons. Teams have been selected and practices have begun in most community leagues. School programs have already begun competitive play.

Players on highly competitive teams and school teams should have already been participating in an off-season training program with an emphasis on strength and conditioning. They should now focus on quickness and skills. Fundamentals should always be stressed.

Proper warm-ups before games and practices cannot be over emphasized regardless of the level of play or the age of the players. This often neglected particularly in the community leagues because practice time on crowded fields are so limited that many coaches immediately begin practice without much warm-up time.

Younger children usually don’t participate at a level that generates many sprains, strains or overuse injuries. Because prepubescent children are inherently active they may have a higher threshold for training efforts.

Studies have shown no significant increase in aerobic fitness after exercise training in children. Generally, a brief period of stretching, running and progressively harder throwing will suffice to prepare this age group.

Young children generally need to learn proper fundamentals so they will not get hurt while playing the sport. Older children need to learn proper techniques so that they don’t hurt themselves while playing.

Adolescents can benefit from strength and endurance training and preseason programs can be quite beneficial. These can be tailored to a particular sport or even a particular position.

Adolescents and young adults are particularly susceptible to “overuse” injuries which almost never occur in the younger children. The most well known occur usually in pitchers and are referred to as the Little League shoulder or elbow. These are actually a number of shoulder and elbow injuries each due to over usage and caused by a different mechanism of injury. These repetitive stress injuries can be caused by simple over usage, poor throwing mechanics, or to an anatomic abnormality. Diagnosis requires expert evaluation and treatment varies due to the cause and the severity of the injury.

The important point is to teach proper throwing mechanics and to limit the amount of pitching for adolescent pitchers. This is most important with boys. The biomechanics of an underhand softball pitch do not generate the same forces as an overhand baseball pitch and overuse injuries are not as frequent.

Young adults require more fitness and training and are generally subject to the same type of injuries as adult athletes. Those participating in highly competitive programs will definitely benefit from both preseason and in-season training. They will require more extensive and longer warm up and stretching.

In planning fitness programs for baseball and softball players it should be remembered that these sports stress quickness and skill rather than strength and endurance. Minimum prepractice warm ups should include stretching and mild jogging as well as gradually increased throwing intensity. Pitchers should thoroughly warm up and not throw hard until the are well warmed up.

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