Upper extremity issues in the adolescent overhead throwing athlete. Episode #373

What common injury patterns do adolescent overhead throwing athletes face? What are the current pitch count recommendations and evidence for their use? How can we best monitor and encourage compliance with these recommendations? Host Dr. Devin McFadden, MD is joined by Dr. Jason Zaremski to explore these topics and more on the AMSSM Sports Medcast.

Dr. Zaremski is an assistant professor from the Division of Physical Medicine and Research, Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation and Co-Medical Director of the Adolescent and High School Outreach Program at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville, Florida. He is also a past participant in the AMSSM International Travelling Fellowship program, having recently travelled to Scandinavia where he shared insights on the above topics and learned how the Scandinavians deal with similar injuries.

In this 30 minute conversation Dr. Zaremski addressed the following topics:

What are common injury patterns in adolescent overhead throwing athletes?

What injury prevention strategies have been enacted and what is the evidence for their use?

When to consider operative rather than conservative treatments.

Mechanisms and Treatment of Throwing Injuries- https://journals.lww.com/acsm-csmr/fulltext/2017/05000/Mechanisms_and_Treatments_for_Shoulder_Injuries_in.17.aspx

Zaremski ZL, Wasser JG, Vincent HK. Mechanisms and Treatments for Shoulder Injury in Overhead Throwing Athletes. Current Sports Medicine Reports. 2017;16(3):179-188

Unaccounted Workload in Pitch Counts- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5894908/

Zaremski JL, Zeppieri G, Jones DL, et al. Unaccounted workload factor: game-day pitch counts in high school baseball pitchers- an observational study. Orthop J Sports Med. 2018;6(4):1-7

The Thrower’s Ten Exercises- https://insights.ovid.com/pubmed?pmid=28498227

Wilke KE, Yenchak AJ, Arrigo CA, et al. The advanced throwers ten exercise program: a new exercise series for enhanced dynamic shoulder control in the overhead throwing athlete. Phys Sportsmed. 2011;39(4):90-97.