What parents need to understand is this, their kid from 10-14 years of age should NOT be throwing curve balls or sliders. It has been medically proven that the growth plates on early to mid teenage kids are still open in the elbow, meaning that the ligaments have a huge range of motion due to the body growing. I forget which group it was but they did a study of 500 professional baseball players and found that if the kid had elbow soreness in junior high especially pitchers they were 75 percent more apt to having UCL injuries due to scar tissue developing inside of a growth plate.
What happens is this, a growth plate is open and remains open until full hardening of interior plate on elbow. When this happens the plate will close and what is there is there for good. The problem is kids are overworking their arms while it is open and scar tissue is developed which presses the ligaments against the now closed plate. Meaning structural fatigue is going to happen and I can promise you ligaments give before bone. That is why if you see a kid grabbing an elbow and rubbing especially a pitcher you need to shut him down. Scar tissue will almost guarantee him ligament damage in early 20s if he continues to stress the joints..
This was common knowledge to just about all trainers in personally knew 10-15 years ago. BUT they can’t fix what damage was done to a kid in his teens, that is on the parents and coaches… that is why I don’t like travel ball or year round ball
