What's a Mom & Dad To Do. ! A Bear's Checklist to Baseball Arms

IMHO, there's NOT enough emphasis to learning
the art of throwing..............period.

In other words, Throwing a baseball is a total body effort.
A dynamic motion.

Throwing a baseball 'is not a natural act'.
Throwing a baseball is an acquired skill.

And there may be several areas to convinced you of this.
One is ......because baseball is more a skill game than .......a contact sport,
hence injuries, both traumatic and disabling injuries in baseball are rare.

However lesser type injuries are common. Hence, the sore arm.

Taking care of sore arms has become ' a highly sophisticated
biomedical science' !!!!! (I might add, and high priced science too.)

However study findings from Toronto do indicate that rotator cuff abnormalities,
bone spurs, degeneration, and tears of the cartiledge are areas you
do not normally see with the John Q Public but do see (and are the
life of) with baseball pitchers. So what's a Mom and Dad to do ?

A Bear's Checklist for Throwing

1) Warm up before throwing. Meaning ....Move thy Feet !
2) Have a qualified coach teach How to Warm Up to Throw
3) Initiate Short Tosses to begin throwing
4) Throw longer and longer distances.
5) Play a game out of it. I use the game of 21.
6) Do Not Overdue Throwing.
7) Throw everyday (w/ and w/o a baseball or other)
8) Teach a Drill to Have Fun Throwing.
a) Watch 'Field of Dreams' Six Times
(I cried when the Dad asked his Dad for a game of catch)
b) Teaching Shadow Pitching !
Motivate the kid to try an break Bear's
Shadown Pitching Record for Most Games
Pitched (almost 10,005), Most No HItters
(approaching near 2800), Most Perfect
Games (over 100), Most K (Over 3,000 per season)
9) Avoid a sidearm delivery even though you can get more movement
on the ball at the youngest of ages
10) Try to 'Learn" or have knowledge what 'pain' vs a sore arm feels like.
(This is Not Easy, does not make common sense, however the
analogy is "the baby touched the flame and learned not to touch it. )
11) Use your own body weight to first 'strengthen' arm muscles.
12) The three phases of the throw is: Reach Back, Acceleration, Deacceleration
13) The shoulder is most vulnerable before and after the ball is released.
14) The weight of the baseball is a primary 'culprit' to musculoskeletal damage
and symptoms of such are rare until pain is evident.
15) If something does not feel right, stop immediately, & tell your coach
There is truth to the expression 'I threw my arm out'.
16) A qualified youth coach should never ask a youngster to
play thru pain in the arm. (NEVER....period.)

17) See a specialist about the arm muscles, (I have a few in mind), however
throwing is a total effort (Yes it reminds me of the KG song, having everything
connected together......foot bone connected to shin bone etc)
18) Common Sense will always prevail.
19) If your son just happens to throw in the 90's, (or mid to high 80's)
and is in HS, call me.

cheers
Bear