Here are a few suggestions to help minimize injuries for pitchers.
1. Mechanics: Get a good coach. The hands go down or separate at peak lift and go with the leg. It is a timing mechanism that is predominant in pitchers. Have your pitchers break out slightly, and not straight down. If you break straight down with the hands, the elbows will tend to go up, creating the dreaded "inverted-W". The "inverted-W" puts a strain on the shoulders and occurs during stretch phase (scapular loading). I now teach my pitchers to break out slightly. In any event, video your pitcher and see where the elbows are at scap-load. You want them to be level (slightly elevated is OK). Look at Strasburg now versus pre-operation. Someone gave him the memo. Go to the Florida website and look at the stills of their pitchers' elbows at scapular loading.
Pitch through and not around the core. This discussion is a whole thread - get a coach if you don't know what I mean. Bad fastballs hurt the arm worse than good curve balls.
Pronate at delivery. This helps decelerate the arm.
2. Practice: Don't always practice full length bullpens. Whether you throw the ball fast, slow or in the middle, you will still coordinate the lower and upper body. Practice timing, grips, staying closed, etc. from half distance and half speed. You will not injure the pitcher and you can work for quite a long time on mechanics, pitches, even location. Instill in the pitcher the intent to throw accurately from 1/2 distance. At 3/4 distance, do the same, back it up to full distance and work some more, but limit the pitches once the pitcher goes full distance. You can get an exponential amount of work done this way without injury.
3. Instruct your player to let you know when their elbow "tingles" or feels "weak." If you get that message, shut them down and get someone else on the mound, or get them to do something else at practice.
4. Get a good conditioning program. Better yet, get them a good trainer.
5. Give them at least a 3 month time in the year without baseball.
6. Get them in martial arts. You get flexibility, confidence, discipline and quickness from this.
7. Read and follow Dr. Andrews advice on frequency of pitching. You can order his materials on the web.
8. If your son is a position player, also, factor those throws into the equation. Put him in left field instead of right field if possible. Put him at first in the infield, again if possible.
Hope this helps. I tried to abbreviate everything so I know some of it will be hard to understand.
Original Post
