For all you pitching coaches- is this a normal problem?

[obbay]

I'm posting this here because I noticed this while DD was pitching. She is 15 and is experimenting with pitching. She has pitched a little in the past and is just trying again to see where it goes.

I was going over the wrist flip at release, I found that her wrist doesn't bend correctly to allow this. With her arm down at the 6:00 position, instead of acting like a hinge and allowing the hand to snap straight as the arm swings forward, it's like the hinge is off and she has to snap at a slight angle. For her to snap straight, she would have to lean over and have the throwing arm in tight to her body. I noticed some other problems with her wrist as well where she's more limited in range of movement than I think is normal.

Do you encounter this sort of thing a lot or is this unusual?

She hurt her elbow last year from throwing O.H. from the OF. It was a cumulative injury that time off and exercise healed. Now at the end of her spring season she's done it again this year. When I discovered the limitation in her range of movement, she asked if this might be why she keeps hurting her elbow. Good Question!

A friend of ours is a PT specialist and I'm going to ask him about it but I was curious if this discrepancy was common.

 

[halskinner]

This is probably not what is going on here but, have your MD check her for growth plate damage on the ends of the forearm bones. If she damaged one when she injured the elbow, it might have stopped growing and those differences in length is a possible cause. I have seen cases reported on the net where they were not diagnosed and the hand was on an angle because one bone was longer. It can get dramatically noticeable over time.

It might also be an extremely tight tendon or ligamate, which I am hoping is the case. Just FYI and hopefully I am over protective here. Unless it is very noticeable, it will take a scan to determine this.

Hal

 

[jinjet95]

Is the hand at an angle to her forearm, or is her forearm at an angle to her upper arm?

 

[obbay]

Her forearm/upper arm angle looks normal to me- I believe I have seen a range of variation in this angle from player to player.
My DD's "natural" position for her hand with the arm at 6:00, is cocked a little to the outside.
With her elbow tight to her side and her forearm at 90 degrees (parallel to ground) she can't turn her hand to have the palm facing up all the way. She can come within about 20 degrees of palm up but that's it.

She broke an elbow and tore ligaments doing gymnastics back in 2008- but that was on her glove side!
(I should check to see if both arms are the same).