quote:“He is 17 and 3 months.”
This is his chronological age, the number from his date of birth. This number tells diagnosers little about the players biological makeup to make decisions about training especially with pitchers whom perform ballistically.
quote:“Not sure what you mean by biological age”
Biological age in males is the rate at which his growth rate and maturity are gained.
With males this rate is determined by the width of his growth plates and his outwards appearance in puberty.
This rate is extremely different by as much as 6 years from the judging from the middle out forwards and backwards. There are Advanced maturers, Equated maturers and delayed maturers. This is a critical piece of information when giving any kind of advice.
If your son has been pitching for a long time his pitching elbow will be biologically older than his glove elbow when compared for growth plate width that has retarded the growth of all pitchers Humerus, Ulna, and Radius. At chronological 17 y. and 3 mo. he may be only biologically 15 or 16, he may be biologically 18 or 19, It matters when you can increase the stress because all the growth plated are completely solidified in the elbow with a n equated maturer at biological age 16. He is probably safe to train like an adult now?
quote:Pain is medial (inside) and intermitten.
This is a different problem than “tennis elbow” or LL elbow that occur on the Lateral outside of the elbow injury. Your Dr’s have this wrong.
This is actually a good sign in that it is telling us he uses his pronators to perform some of his pitches, probably his fastball that may have towards the ball arm side movement.
The problem is his pronators are insufficiently fit and need to be incredibly fit to pronate the forearms.
quote:”The forearm exercises ordered by the PT include band work and wrist "up and downs"”
Band work will passively exercise non sport specifically his shoulders but unfortunately he also needs forearm Flexor work.
The best exercises for this involve supination to pronation of the forearms that most general trainers skip over and it does not get done!
One good one is forearm twirls performed with Kettle bells or a home made device using 5 gallon buckets and a PVC handle with rope, here is one of D1 my clients performing bucket twirls in HS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8hSiV3Su0Y
Another is to attain a 6 LB. Ladies shot put and flip the ball with pressure between his middle finger and thumb by pronating it aggressively from his belly up releasing the ball and catching it with the other hand.
By far the best exercise is to get the shot put and throw it with varying degrees of Ulnar flexion (fingers up and towards the outside) and Radial flexion (fingers up and towards the inside) to pronate the drive and release voluntarily and Sport specifically.
Unfortunately this is a logistical problem that has to be overcome and why more people do not do this. Here is a 13 YO performing some of the drills.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHRgU9u4kmI
No supination or low arm angles allowed for this drill!!!!
The best pitching tenet is to pronate all your pitches and the best way to learn this is free at DrMikeMarshall.com
Good practices in the future.