You Are Doing More Harm To Your Child's Arm Right Now...

Hello again, everyone! It has been a while since I posted in this blog. With the craziness that 2020 became, I ended up not posting as much as I thought I would. My goal for 2021, however, is to post a new entry at least once a month, so here we go for the first time this year.

Every year when the calendar turns from one year to another, people get excited about new beginnings, fresh starts, and new year's resolutions. The excitement for our household though focuses on the fact that a new baseball season is just about to begin. For the past six years we have used January 1st to mark the beginning of our preparations for upcoming spring and summer baseball season.

On a personal note, spring is always my favorite season of the year. I love it when the weather starts to get warmer (I detest the cold), when the grass starts to green, and when the trees start to get their leaves again. It also signifies the beginning of the baseball season for both youth, high school, college and pro teams. By mid-February the youth through college age teams are usually starting to play their first games (at least in the south where we have been for the past two decades) and pitchers and catchers are reporting to spring training. Simply put, it's the best time of the year!

That timeline brings me to the topic at hand today. The title of this blog entry is 100% true in my opinion. There are more parents and coaches doing harm to their child's arm right now than there will be done later in the year when some kid throws 90 pitches in a game as a 12 year old.

Let me explain what I mean. My opinions on pitch count have been well documented. I'm far less concerned about the exact number of pitches that a kid throws than I am about things like mechanics, fatigue, and more intricate things like "high stress innings". No one will ever convince me that a kid is at a significant amount of more risk when he is looking strong and keeping his form and cruising through a six inning game at 70 pitches then coming out for a seventh inning that pushes his pitch count past 80 (the recommended pitch limit) to something like 85-90 pitches. Similarly, no one will ever convince me that a kid coming off a 30 pitch high stress inning that starts to lose his arm slot at 45 pitches isn't significantly MORE at risk of injury than the pitcher I reference above in the 90 pitch range. Point being, so many times, I hear pitch count as the end all for protection or risk, and there is simply way more that goes into it.

So, what does that have to do with harming an arm right now? Well right now, the start of the new year, is when arm care really begins. It doesn't start at 79 pitches in a tournament the first weekend of March by pulling a kid before he throws that 80th pitch. Players should be building up their arms right now to handle the workload of the 50-60 game season that is rapidly approaching.

Every spring I see coaches and parents make the same mistake. They do not build up a pitchers arm slowly. I have seen and known coaches who will have their pitchers throwing early spring bullpens or intrasquad scrimmages in an effort to get their players ready for the spring season. The intention is right, but the execution is often wrong. You will see players throw 20, 30, or even 40 pitch bullpens two or three times before the first tournament or two. That is actually a good thing. The problem comes in that first tournament when coaches revert back to the pitching rule that limits at 80 pitches and suddenly jump their kid from a 30 pitch bullpen to a 75 pitch game. That is where we put players at risk.

So, how can you avoid this being a problem and what does that have to do right now? To properly prepare a player for the season the process is actually pretty lengthy. You should have already started, or be starting very soon. I call this process the "build up program" or I've heard it termed the "ramp up process". To execute this process correctly it needs to move slowly and is likely going to take 6-8 weeks, which means it's that time of year to get started. If you aren't getting started now then you are putting your child's arm at risk this spring! (If you are in the midwest or north then you might not start games until mid-March or even April so you still have a little time)

Every player will be a little different when it comes to a preseason throwing plan that builds up their arm strength, but I will attempt to outline some basics for you in case you need some help. We like to have our players start with some light catch. In general we use time as a indicator vs. a total number of throws. Like any time we play catch we start with some warm up, j-bands, stretching, throws from the knees etc. Whatever your routine is you should start that from day one.

We have our players start out playing catch for just 5-6 minutes and we like to have them start short (like normal catch) and then work their way back to about the distance between the bases they play at. So for 11/12 year olds that would be 70ft for 9/10 year olds 60 ft. and for HS kids that's 90ft. Early on when we first start we do back to back throwing days and we increase the time we play catch by one minute. After two straight days, we take a day off for rest and then go back to back days again. Once again increasing the minutes but also we start increasing the distance. So day one would be 5 min of catch at 70ft for a 12 year old. day 2 would be 6 min of catch for 70ft, and then day three would be 7 min. of catch at 80-90 ft. and so on. We add between 10-20 ft per two days until we have built up to playing long toss and until we are playing catch for about 15 minutes straight. (Side note: for the most part 15 min of catch is plenty of time for any player to get loose - I see some teams that have coaches standing around talking and kids will just stand out there and play catch for 20-30 min - have an intention with everything you do. Even playing catch!)

As for long toss, there are varying theories on long toss. You will see plenty of big league and college guys that throw the ball 300ft completely across the diamond with a large loop in it to really stretch out the arm. Then there are guys like Nolan Ryan (who can argue with what that guy has accomplished) who believed long toss was only about 120-130ft and should be done on a frozen rope from that distance and thrown only as far as you can still be perfect with it. For us, we like to play catch where the player continues to move back to a distance that is greater than they can actually throw with a crow hop. We move back where they are giving their partner a good long hop. Now to give a good long hop you have to keep the ball on a pretty good line (not too high but not too low). I would say about 10-15ft off the ground tops. What we have found is that players will pretty quickly strengthen their arms and have to keep moving back to keep getting the hop. We also don't want to wear our arms out throwing max effort (the long hop) so we limited those total throws to 4-6.

After we have built to long toss, which should take 2-3 weeks, we start throwing our bullpens. Just like playing catch, we like to build our bullpens up from a very low number. Before we ever throw our first pen off a mound, we like to throw two 20 pitch flat ground bullpens with a day of break in between as we prep our mechanics and our arms to throw off a mound. We have found that we want our pitchers ready to throw in games on Sunday so a good weekly routine for us is 20 pitch flat ground on Tuesday and another on Thursday to prepare for a full bullpen on Sunday. Our first Sunday bullpen starts at 30 total pitches. We then repeat the same process - 20 flat ground pitches Tues. and Thurs. - and then full mound pen on Sunday adding ten pitches to the full pen each week. So week two is 40 pitches, week three is 50 pitches, and so on and so on. (Side note: once we reach 50 pitches on Sunday, we usually back down to one midweek flat ground of 25-30 pitches on Wednesdays. We play catch daily and will work on throwing mechanics even when we play catch, but just don't throw full out pens except on Wednesday).

After we build to long toss, which should take 2-3 weeks, we start throwing our bullpens. Just like playing catch, we like to build our bullpens up from a very low number. Before we ever throw our first pen off a mound, we like to throw two 20 pitch flat ground bullpens with a day of break in between as we prep our mechanics and our arms to throw off a mound. We have found that we want our pitchers ready to throw in games on Sunday so a good weekly routine for us is 20 pitch flat ground on Tuesday and another on Thursday to prepare for a full bullpen on Sunday. Our first Sunday bullpen starts at 30 total pitches. We then repeat the same process - 20 flat ground pitches Tues. and Thurs. - and then full mound pen on Sunday adding ten pitches to the full pen each week. So week two is 40 pitches, week three is 50 pitches, and so on and so on. (Side note: once we reach 50 pitches on Sunday, we usually back down to one midweek flat ground of 25-30 pitches on Wednesdays. We play catch daily and will work on throwing mechanics even when we play catch, but just don't throw full out pens except on Wednesday Additionally our 30 and 40 pitch bullpens are fastballs and change ups only. It's not until 50 pitches that we start mixing in our breaking balls off the mound. We will work on the breaking ball during our second week of flat ground pens - usually 3-5 breaking balls per flat ground).

For those of you quick with math, you can see that your first bullpen needs to be a full six weeks in advance of your first tournament, if you want your player to go 80 pitches. When you add the two weeks it takes to build to a bullpen, you are now looking at starting eight weeks prior to the first tournament. Hopefully, you can now see why I say so many people are doing more harm right now to their kids arm than is often done later in the season. Coaches and parents do not get their players ramping up or building up early enough or slowly enough to keep their arms healthy. Want proof this is a big deal? Major League Baseball studies show that over 30% of all serious pitching injuries happen during spring training and the first month of the season. This can be attributed to players ramping up too fast or not at all and then coming to spring training and trying to compete for roster spots or just trying to compete to get batters out. Want further proof? Go look at how many arm injuries there were to pitchers last summer when MLB had to pause spring training because of Covid and then they ramped up with a very short summer camp before games started. The numbers were staggering! It's also why pitchers and catchers report to camp a week earlier than position players. Teams have to make sure their pitchers have enough time to get ready.

Anyway, this is just a topic that I'm very passionate about and one that I see done incorrectly or not done at all with our youth athletes

As I say goodbye for this entry, please let me extend my sincerest hopes that these words find you safe and healthy as the Covid numbers continue to surge. May God bless you and your family and may God Bless America!