I wonder if any readers or their kids have experienced arm injuries due to overuse.
It is a situation that is becoming more common ( or well documented anyway ) among young baseball
players, most notably pitchers. One such condition, dubbed “Little Leage Elbow,” is appearing with greater frequency.
We have seen it in our work with some young athletes at Reddy-Care Physical Therapy in Great Neck, New York.
Our practice hopes to conduct addtional study on the phenomenon, and would welcome any firsthand experiences readers
might like to share here.

When I was 14 and 15 I pitched in what was called Babe Ruth league. 14, 15 and 16 year olds. My fastball topped out at about 73, 74 MPH. I threw a lot of curveballs, since I could usually throw it for strikes and miss a lot of bats. What happened mid season however was that I couldn’t throw my fastball because my elbow hurt like hell… so I just threw all curveballs. Since I was still efficient and struck out a lot of batters, I didn’t think twice about it. My coaches never noticed and my parents thought it was just a case of my arm being sore. After my 15 year old season, I quit baseball and pursued music. In college, I returned to my new found love of baseball and pitched. My fastball topped out at 85 and didn’t hurt at all.

Back in the day (heh, ‘back in the day’ I say… I turn 27 next week) I threw a tailing fastball that topped out around 90, but it messed up my elbow—I have no idea exactly how, it just slowly deteriorated to where pitching instantly caused severe pain—and just quit pitching. It’s something about pitching a baseball specifically, as I’ve always been able to throw a football many times over with only minimal pain, but even now, years later, I can only throw 50 pitches or so before the elbow pain returns.

My older brother was an all star pitcher all through babe ruth league and highschool. He ignored the pain in his arm until he couldnt anymore. He just turned thirty last week and just had his third surgery on his arm about three months ago. I’m not sure if he was over worked (although he did pitch many complete games and threw well over the average number of pitches almost every game. He thinks it was a combination of being overworked and bad mechanics that he was taught.