Preventing Youth Pitching Injuries in Little League Baseball and Softball
As spring draws near, baseball season is just around the corner for many Little League youth baseball and softball players. I wanted to take some time to share a few resources that are available around the web on the prevention of youth baseball and softball pitching injuries. The dramatic increase in youth throwing injuries is mindboggling and really a shame. I review the medical reports from kids entering the professional baseball draft and I often shake my head as I see so many preventable injuries. The majority of experts would agree that the number one contributing factor to youth throwing injuries is overuse (one may even call this abuse…). We are getting much better at monitoring workloads and avoiding overuse, but the more information we can spread to parents, coaches, and even the players themselves the better.
The American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) has two great resources on the prevention and emergency management of youth baseball and softball injuries, including a PowerPoint presentation and a downloadable handbook. These are great resources for parents, coaches, physicians, athletic trainings, EMTs, and anyone else that may be covering youth games. I wanted to highlight them here to help spread the word on injury management in our youth sports. Kudos to the AOSSM for making these quality resources available free to the public.
Other Resources on Preventing Youth Baseball and Softball Injuries
There are many other great resources on preventing youth baseball and softball injuries:
- Little League Baseball’s official site has a lot of great resources including a special page on Little League pitch count restrictions.
- View a presentation from Drs. James Andrews and Glenn Fleisig on youth injuries at the Little League site including information on biomechanics and recommendations that have shaped recent USA Baseball and Little League pitch count restrictions.
- The American Sports Medicine Institute has information on safety guidelines from their USA Baseball Medical & Safety Advisory Committee Guidelines. This is a must read.
- USA Baseball also has several publications available regarding many aspects of medical care in youth baseball and softball.
I hope this information is useful for you and we continue to develop safe guidelines for the care of our youth athletes. Best of luck this season!
Photo by Wildernice,
