@ILoveBaseball04 posted:The story of the rapidly growing teen and weightlifting - just use a wee bit of caution. We did not realize until after my 14-year-old was injured that he was at the prime age for a stress fracture to his lower spine (most common is spondylolysis). In his case, we were very lucky to catch it at the stress reaction stage - had it progressed, it could have been an injury that kept him out for much longer. He first felt it while lunging with weights and then when swinging a bat or sprinting. After many weeks of PT, he seems to be recovered (the awesome part about being 14
), but he had to learn to be more patient (perhaps too much weight, too soon) and careful the hard way.
This is good caution, recently amazed at the number of kids I know personally that have been dealing with stress fractures of the spine. My understanding from the parents who talked with me about it, that their orthopedic doctors told them it was getting common among rotational athletes, going from one sport to another with no rest between. The T-spine gets lots of torque. In 3 of the cases it was athletes who competed in baseball then right to soccer or football, the combination of rotation and then pounding (by a lot of running or contact) seems to be the culprit. But over doing it while lifting especially if not done correctly can certainly aggravate it, but I think it's more it brings it to light (it is a micro stress fracture in most cases that can be hard to notice right off) more than causes it.
IF you lift, mobility and tissue work needs to be included to remain pliable and loose. If you are hyper-mobile, especially in the joints, strengthening muscles around them so they aren't so loose is also beneficial to throwing athletes like that.