Are You Pitching Too Much?

Hey guys. Coach Jill here with some quick thoughts about how much you should actually be pitching. I know people, especially coaches, will have a lot of different views on this subject. This is just my take on what I think is best for the physical and mental health of most pitchers.

A few weeks ago, I received a text from the dad of one of my 11 year old students. She is a very good pitcher and is quite advanced for her age. She is used to being the starting pitcher in her leagues but this is the first year she will be allowed to play ball in school. Her dad texted me with some concerns about her upcoming school schedule. He said “this seems like a very aggressive schedule. She will be pitching 4 fulls games a week by herself, plus practices, plus lessons with you. I’m worried about overuse. Should I speak with the coach?”

My answer was, YES. This is too much! Especially for an 11 year old who is not fully developed or fully grown. Don’t get me wrong, getting reps in and getting lots of innings is a great thing. You want to get out there and get good experience facing batters in game situations. However, especially at such a young age, this amount of pitching can very easily lead to injuries and burn out. Not to mention, when pitchers get overly fatigued, mechanics start to break down and bad habits can arise.

As an 11 year old, muscles, bones, and growth plates are still developing, and will be for a while. When you overuse certain muscles/areas at such a young age, it is much more likely that injuries will occur.

One of the most common questions I get from my lessons is “how often should I be practicing?” My answer is at most, every other day, and that includes games! Muscles need time to rest or else they will not recover. It’s similar to exercising. If you want to see proper muscle growth and muscle memory development, you have to work out those muscles, rest and let them recover/rebuild themselves, and then you can exercise them again. If you don’t give yourself time to rest, the muscles will not have a chance to rebuild themselves, and you will be at a much greater risk for injury.

I’ve been watching all of the NCAA games so far this season. One team in particular caught my attention, because it seems they only have 2 pitchers they feel comfortable throwing, one of which typically does not last more than a couple of innings before she starts getting hit. The vast majority of the pitching time falls on the shoulders of their other pitcher. When the coach was interviewed about this situation, she responded “she looks tired but I’m going to throw her until her arm falls off.” As a pitching instructor it concerns me greatly when athletes are treated as machines instead of humans, and even more so when coaches don’t seem to care about the well-being of their athletes.

I recall my own experience in high school where I was expected to pitch every game. There were definitely times where I got fatigued and my mechanics would break down, and it even got to the point where I was getting scapular and arm pain. This wasn’t because I was pitching incorrectly, it was because I was being overused and had no time to rest. And this was in high school, I cant imagine putting that kind of pressure on even younger pitchers.

In short, give your pitchers time to recover. If you’re in the off-season and are just practicing, have them pitch at most every other day. If you are in season, and you really only have one pitcher, don’t have her do any extra weekday or weekend practices other than the ones that are absolutely required. Although ideally, you should develop at least one other pitcher who can share the load, otherwise you might end up with an injured athlete and no pitcher. Have your pitcher ice/heat after games and five her plenty of time to warm up and stretch. We have to remember, our pitchers are humans, not machines.