Attended the National Softball Coaches Clinic in Portland this last weekend. It was great, lots of great information. One of the things that was stressed was the amount of players now that are one-sport athletes, and how they are often "out of balance". This hit home for me, because my DD, who's a pitcher, has an elbow tendon injury. How did she do it? If you can believe it..FLEXING her bicep! Like lots of pitchers, her one bicep is pretty large. She was flexing at practice, and her elbow made a "pop" loud enough for some of the girls to hear it. Now, doctor's orders she's off softball activity for 3 more weeks and will re-evaluate after that.
What is interesting? A large bicep, a large fore-arm...and almost no tricep. I'm not a doctor, but I'm going to make a WAG diagnosis of the problem and say her right-arm muscles were over-balanced and that's what caused the injury.
One of the presenters at the Clinic made a really good point about hitters as well. A hitter will take literally thousands of swings from one side, firing and building those muscles in a certain way, from the calf all the way up through the neck. Ok....so what about the other side? This is absolutely going to put a body out-of-balance, unless you compensate for it with some sort of other activity (conditioning and weight training).
Of course, pitching is probably the worst for possibly developing certain muscles to the detriment of others, but as described above, hitting can do the same thing. Once players get into the college ranks, there's more time and control to include weight lifting into the yearly routine. But for HS and travel ball, how many actually get that done? We all "need" more time for practice, whether it's hitting or grounders or pitching or catching.... but are we doing our players a disservice by not at least acknowledging the issues we can be creating with the muscle specialization that results?
BTW....a great Coaches Clinic from top to bottom, would recommend it to anyone.
TR
What is interesting? A large bicep, a large fore-arm...and almost no tricep. I'm not a doctor, but I'm going to make a WAG diagnosis of the problem and say her right-arm muscles were over-balanced and that's what caused the injury.
One of the presenters at the Clinic made a really good point about hitters as well. A hitter will take literally thousands of swings from one side, firing and building those muscles in a certain way, from the calf all the way up through the neck. Ok....so what about the other side? This is absolutely going to put a body out-of-balance, unless you compensate for it with some sort of other activity (conditioning and weight training).
Of course, pitching is probably the worst for possibly developing certain muscles to the detriment of others, but as described above, hitting can do the same thing. Once players get into the college ranks, there's more time and control to include weight lifting into the yearly routine. But for HS and travel ball, how many actually get that done? We all "need" more time for practice, whether it's hitting or grounders or pitching or catching.... but are we doing our players a disservice by not at least acknowledging the issues we can be creating with the muscle specialization that results?
BTW....a great Coaches Clinic from top to bottom, would recommend it to anyone.
TR