Baseball Greats Tom Glavine, John Smoltz Discuss Injury Prevention in Youth Baseball
Resurgens Orthopaedics Charitable Foundation Offers Free DVD to Coaches and Parents.
For your free video contact Kathy Scott at scottkm@resurgens.com or by calling 678-422-4216.
January 14, 2009 (Atlanta) - The doctors at Resurgens Orthopaedics have launched a metro-wide injury prevention campaign as a response to the dramatic increase in the number of youth baseball injuries in recent years.
Dr. Joseph Chandler-Executive Director of the Resurgens Charitable Foundation and Director of Medical Services Emeritus for the Atlanta Braves--narrates a new DVD, "Striking Out Injuries in Youth Baseball," which premiered January 10 at the Little League Baseball Annual Leadership Conference. The video features injury prevention tips and recommendations from baseball legends Tom Glavine and John Smoltz, former Braves organization player and youth trainer Nick Crocker, and Resurgens Head Athletic Trainer Mark Wentworth.
"When it comes to youth baseball injuries, we want to see fewer patients," Dr. Chandler said. "We hope this video will promote injury prevention and awareness among coaches and parents, and most important, our youth."
Dr. Chandler's studies have shown that such injuries "are not just from one pitch, but rather are the cumulative result of overuse and too much pitching at too young an age."
Medical records of draft eligible players show that athletes are suffering injuries at younger and younger ages. "We are seeing some of these kids with three or four operations before they even get out of high school or college," Dr. Chandler said.
Upon talking to successful major league players about their development as youth, Dr. Chandler found that they refrained from some of the harmful practices that are so prevalent today. "Typically, they did not play year-round baseball, and they did not start throwing breaking balls until they were much older," he said.
In the video, Glavine stresses that he will not let his kids throw a breaking ball "until they are in high school" and that "learning to throw a fastball for strikes consistently is much more important at a young age."
"If a young pitcher can throw a fastball for a strike 70 percent of the time, then they can learn to throw a change up," he said. "When the pitcher is older, stronger, and more physically mature, a breaking ball can be added."
Smoltz discusses the importance of limiting pitchers' work at young ages, claiming that it is more important to work on the mechanics of the game than to risk "career-ending injuries."
