Overuse Injuries

The pressure hypercompetitive parents impose is so great that the parents inadvertently physically injure their young pitchers. Similarly to the mental stress hypercompetitive parents inflict, little league pitchers also cannot handle the physical stress it takes to please their parents. In order to meet their parents’ expectations, young pitchers tend to overwork themselves, and the parents encourage the intense training because they are blinded by competition. Intense training or overworking is more formally known as overuse. According to Dr. Eric Parks, the author of "Prevention of Overuse Injuries in Young Baseball Pitchers," the definition of overuse is the repetitive micro-traumas a player experiences (Parks and Ray 514). Eric Parks is
According to Dr. Jason Zaremski, who has a specialty in sports medicine, and his colleague Dr. Brian Krabak, who specializes in sports medicine and rehabilitation, any discrepancy in the throwing motion can cause injuries. If the pitcher is tiered then the he or she has a higher probability of suffering from a shoulder or elbow injury. Dr. Glenn Fleisig, the research director at the American Sports Medicine Institute, and Dr. James R. Andrews suggested some of the injuries caused by fatigue are a decreased velocity, inaccuracy, poor posture, and a longer time between pitches. If the pitcher is suffering from fatigue he or she will attempt to compensate for their decreased velocity by throwing harder at the expense of his or her proper throwing mechanics (Fleisig and Andrews 423). However, attempting to throw the ball faster only will increase the force the shoulder and elbow will endure; Thus, leading to injuries such as an ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) tear (Fleisig and Andrews 422). Other injuries may occur such as proximal humeral epiphysionlysis – more commonly referred to as little league shoulder – rotator cuff dysfunction, and superior labrum anteroposterior (SLAP) lesions (Zaremski and Krabak