Monday, May 16, 2011

Statistically Speaking...

I am going to go out on a limb and say that there is something wrong with your shoulder. You probably throw a baseball more than 100 times a day for 9 or 10 months out of the year. You have probably been throwing a baseball since you were 5 or six years old.

Check these out if you get a chance – just read the abstracts:

Wright, RW, Steger-May, K, Klein, SE. Radiographic findings in the shoulder and elbow of Major League Baseball pitchers. American Journal of Sports Medicine. 2007 Nov; 35(11):1893-43.

Fredericson M, Ho C, Waite B, Jennings F, Peterson J, Williams C, Mathesonn GO. Magnetic resonance imaging abnormalities in the shoulder and wrist joints of asymptomatic elite athletes. PM R 2009 Feb;1(2): 107-16.

Miniaci A, Mascia AT, Salonen DC, Becker EJ. Magnetic resonance imaging of the shoulder in asymptomatic professional baseball pitchers. American Journal of Sports Medicine. 2002 Jan-Feb;30(1):66-73

The same thing can be said about the knees and backs. It would probably take about one google medical search that takes .000005 seconds to find articles saying the same thing about the knee and back.

I say this because the majority of you have had shoulder trouble at some point in time. If it persists, you need to go talk to an educated individual. When it comes to an overhead athlete – you need to talk to the right kind of physician. Your family physician is really smart – don’t get me wrong. However, he might panic when he sees damage to the rotator cuff and some fraying of the labrum. I would highly recommend talking to a physician that has some experience with the overhead athlete - an orthopeadic/sports medicine physician.

Chris Ham, MSA, ATC, CES
Athletic Trainer
Vanderbilt University Baseball

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