Avoiding the Disabled List: How Physical Therapy Can Help Avoid Baseball Injuries

Baseball is just around the corner with pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training in the next coming weeks! This means that more and more players will suffer from injuries due to not being trained or in shape. Baseball even has a major surgery named after a famous player, Tommy John. A major injury, especially to pitchers, can ruin or even worse, end a career. Many MLB players such as Johan Santana, former New York Mets and current Baltimore Orioles pitcher, has missed the past few seasons because of injuries to their throwing arm. Unfortunately, many pitchers never come back the same player as they were, and both the player and organization suffer from these season-ending injuries.  
Nevertheless, physical therapy is a great way to keep your body in shape and maintain superior health. 

Endurance, arm strength, leg strength and just about every body part that you can think of are used when playing baseball. Research suggests that sports injuries have increased by 60% over the last decade. This is due to athletes overworking their bodies without taking proper care of them. In baseball, pitchers consistently throw hard with an unnatural range of motion for the human body, which is why there are less injuries for softball pitchers than baseball pitchers. The arm is at risk every single time a pitcher winds up and releases a baseball towards home plate. Therefore, physical therapists will work with athletes in order to make pitchers less susceptible to injury. Speed, flexibility, joint mobility and muscle imbalances are all ways in which physical therapists attempt to stretch the muscles and joints in the body. 

The repetitive throwing, running and even swinging can cause so much wear and tear on a body that major league baseball teams have strength and conditioning coaches to ensure their players are less vulnerable to injury. These coaches use physical therapy exercises in order to avoid musculoskeletal, elbow and shoulder injuries. Furthermore, physical therapists will work on a baseball player’s range of motion and mobility when teaching them their stretching and strengthening exercises. 

If you are a baseball player, you should highly consider taking the proper precaution of taking care of your body and seeking help from physical therapy. Physical Therapy will help decrease your chance of missing out on games or an entire season due to injury. Your chances of injury will decrease drastically by allowing your body to become used to the range of motion and mobility that comes with playing the game of baseball. So, take out your bats and gloves and get ready to play ball! 

We feel like we have the best physical therapists around. Did you know you don't need a referral to get help from a Physical Therapist? Direct access is available for you, please call us and set up an evaluation so we can help get you back on your feet. In Orange County we offer Physical Therapy in Chester, Goshen, Monroe, Port Jervis, and Montogmery. Westchester County has Physical Therapy in Armonk, Bedford, and Hawthorne. In Ulster County we offer Physical Therapy in Wallkill, while in Sullivan County you can get Physical Therapy in Ferndale. To round out our 12 locations in New York, those living in Rockland County can go to Physical Therapy in New City as well as Pomona.  If you happen to live in PA, we also have Physical Therapy in Milford and Dingmans Ferry of Pike County.  Give us a call today! - See more at: http://accessptw.com/blog/Avoiding-the-Disabled-List-How-Physical-Therapy-Can-Help-Avoid-Baseball-Injuries~1023.html#sthash.svIArEJ3.dpuf