Coaching: Protecting Young Arms

Having been a youth pitcher and pitching all the way through college, I learned quite a bit about taking care of the pitching arm.  Unfortunately for me my high school coach didn’t understand this and caused a lot of arm problems for me, however I learned from it.  As a youth coach developing a deep pitching staff is very important.  This coupled with making sure your desire to win doesn’t outweigh the safety of your pitching staff are keys at protecting young arms.  I have developed a rotation of 7 pitchers to make sure I never overuse any single pitcher.  Anyone that says they are not talented enough to develop that deep of pitching is kidding himself or herself.  I also adhere to strict pitch counts.  

The pitch count system I use starts season on a 40-pitch count.  I use two-week increments and will increase 10 pitches for each two weeks.  I coach 14 year olds, so I cap the pitch count at 70 pitches at the end of the year.  Coupled with the pitch count I make sure the boys are getting adequate rest between times they pitch.  I shoot for at least 3 days rest between times they pitch.   I like them to take 1-2 days off from throwing completely after pitching 50+ pitches and then play catch on the 3^rd day.  Typically this will have them ready to pitch that 4^th day.  Another important thing for any pitcher to do is ice their arm the day they pitch.

For those that don’t have the coaching staff to keep track of pitches, a good barometer to use is the average pitcher will throw 15 pitches an inning. You can figure 25 pitches for a rough inning and 10 for a very quick 1,2,3 inning.

I have witnessed too many youth coaches ruin pitchers arms when they were youth. I can’t even count how many pitchers I saw at youth age that dominated (and were overused so the coach could win) that didn’t pitch in high school or beyond due to arm problems. I have personally sacrificed many wins in which I could have used some of my top pitching just to make sure I adhered to my pitch count policy.