It is really sad as an orthopedic surgeon to see a young athlete in my office with an injury that was completely preventable. Now I’m not talking about not playing sports at all. Quite the opposite. But I think if there are steps that we can take to lower a kid’s risk of a serious injury, we should do that. One of those steps is to limit pitching to 100 innings per year.

In this tip, we are going to talk about a major step to decrease injuries in youth baseball.

I could talk about not throwing all year or playing for more than one team in a season. Those efforts would be helpful.

A simpler strategy to prevent overuse shoulder and elbow throwing injuries might be to set a limit on the number of innings a kid can pitch over the course of an entire year.

Pitching too many innings doesn’t increase a kid’s risk of a few days of shoulder soreness or elbow tightness. They are more likely to suffer injuries that require surgery or end their playing careers.

Also read:
Encouraging Little League baseball coaches to use pitch counts
Don’t let young baseball players pitch more than 100 innings per year