Arm management

[Chilixa]

Arm management for pitchers gets a lot of discussion for obvious reasons but do any of you consciously manage the arm usage of position players? Is there a point where too much throwing can negatively impact them. I know some high school teams practice 4-5 times a week and then some of those girls are also doing some travel ball activities on the side as well.

Do you intentionally schedule practices with no throwing to give arms rest? Do you consciously monitor how much girls are throwing overhand in a short period. Most of these girls won’t complain until they have an injury and will just keep throwing. Just curious how some of you approached managing overhand reps, especially for girls that also pitch.


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[Towny9]

The biggest thing I see coaches do wrong when it comes to arm management is rush the warmups. A proper warmup should take a good while to do. Most coaches rush it and the players never get past 60 feet or so.

 

[Dabears17]

Practicing four or five days a week exposes flaws in throwing mechanics. At a coaches clinic I went to given by Trisha Ford back in 2012 she said on average 1 to 2 players a year would need surgery caused by flawed throwing motion.

Proper warmups and looking at www.highlevelthrowing is highly recommended.

I would say do one practice of week with little or no throwing.

My DD's club went to only practicing every other Sunday and keeping it relatively light during the HS Season. Unfortunately, one of my DD's HS teammates played for a club that treated Sunday practice like a 3-hour bootcamp that was their only practice of the week. She, of course, missed 5 weeks of the HS season with arm issues and has barely played this summer with lingering arm issues.

 

[_MIA_]

Biggest problem I see is that many girls throw like crap..that is worse on your arm after a certain age than anything else.

 

[Rolling Hard]

Biggest problem I see is that many girls throw like crap..that is worse on your arm after a certain age than anything else.

Just watching poor throwing mechanics hurts MY arm. Three quarter arm slot hand grenades throws are tough to fix.

 

[DonnyS]

Edit: Sorry I posted what we did for our DD pitcher. Misread the OP.

Still would use the MarcPro religiously as we do now.

 

[PapaBear]

Biggest problem I see is that many girls throw like crap..that is worse on your arm after a certain age than anything else.

My daughter had shoulder surgery after her FR season (pitcher). When she got cleared to lightly throw she worked at the house with a family friend who played MLB and runs a baseball organization in our town. Went back over the fundamentals of the basic throw and throwing mechanics. Neglected part of the game that can be greatly increased just like hitting, pitching or fielding.

 

[Gags]

I've mostly convinced myself that having 8U and under throw anything bigger than a baseball is a major cause of crappy throwing mechanics. It's really becoming the elephant in the room. BB vs. SB swing mechanics are slowly starting to be accepted as being nearly (if not completely) identical. I think the push to use the same throwing mechanics is sadly still lagging several years behind.

I've known about 5 girls that spent significant time playing baseball before switching to softball. ALL of the them had superior throwing mechanics to the SB-only girls. I admit it's a very limited sample size. But I also come across enough DFP and other social media posts to believe there's merit to looking into this further.

 

[_MIA_]

I've mostly convinced myself that having 8U and under throw anything bigger than a baseball is a major cause of crappy throwing mechanics. It's really becoming the elephant in the room. BB vs. SB swing mechanics are slowly starting to be accepted as being nearly (if not completely) identical. I think the push to use the same throwing mechanics is sadly still lagging several years behind.

I've known about 5 girls that spent significant time playing baseball before switching to softball. ALL of the them had superior throwing mechanics to the SB-only girls. I admit it's a very limited sample size. But I also come across enough DFP and other social media posts to believe there's merit to looking into this further.

 

[Towny9]

I've mostly convinced myself that having 8U and under throw anything bigger than a baseball is a major cause of crappy throwing mechanics. It's really becoming the elephant in the room. BB vs. SB swing mechanics are slowly starting to be accepted as being nearly (if not completely) identical. I think the push to use the same throwing mechanics is sadly still lagging several years behind.

I've known about 5 girls that spent significant time playing baseball before switching to softball. ALL of the them had superior throwing mechanics to the SB-only girls. I admit it's a very limited sample size. But I also come across enough DFP and other social media posts to believe there's merit to looking into this further.

Agreed. The bigger ball caused the girls overcompensate and get their hand under the ball and push it. My DD and I still throw a baseball, football, anything we can throw basically.