Baseball Injuries

Common Baseball Injuries

Baseball is a sport dominated by the shoulder, elbow, forearm, and wrists. As a result of the nature of the sport, injuries to these areas are generally defined as either cumulative (overuse) or acute (traumatic) injuries.

Overuse injuries occur over time due to stress on the muscles, joints and soft tissues without proper time for healing. They begin as a small, nagging ache or pain, and can grow into a debilitating injury if they aren’t treated early or properly. Periods of rest being built into the season are imperative to help prevent these types of injuries from happening.

Acute or traumatic injuries occur due to a sudden force, or impact, and can be quite dramatic. These can range from fractures and torn ligaments to concussions.

No matter what the mode of injury is, in a throwing sport it is of utmost importance to safely return to throwing following an upper extremity injury by completing a detailed stepwise interval throwing program for a specific position.

Shoulder

• Rotator Cuff Tear
• Rotator Cuff Tendinitis, Shoulder Bursitis, Impingement Syndrome
• Proximal Humeral Epiphysiolysis (Little Leaguer’s Shoulder)

Elbow

• Lateral Epicondylitis (Tennis Elbow)
• Ulnar Collateral Ligament Tears
• Synovial Impingement Syndrome (SIPL)
• Osteochondritis Dissecans (OCD, Little Leaguer’s Elbow)

Wrist

• Triangular Fibrocartilage Complex (TFCC) Tears
• Scaphoid Fracture