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And now this "Teachable Moment" from StrengthCoach.com!
The Real Truth About Pitch Counts
This article is a compilation of articles written for Webball on the subject of Pitch Counts and from Chapter #4 The Truth about Pitch Counts, Workloads and Overuse in Coach's latest Book- A Parent's Survival Guide For the Parent of the Elite Pitcher
If someone you had never met or heard of before called you on the phone and said they're 12 year old son was injured running a 10K and they wanted your opinion as to why he got hurt, wouldn't you intuitively want more information before you would even think about forwarding an opinion?
In elite tennis is there an universally accepted maximum number of full speed first serve attempts before the coach begins to really worry about injury or a drop in performance?
Is there a specific number of passes that a QB can throw in practice before the trainer begins to be concerned?
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The answers to those questions will ALWAYS be…a one size fits all rule simply will not work. The answer will always depend upon the individual and the situation.
Yet in baseball, it appears to me that we as a community believe we can establish this type of number as a universal standard for everyone. In my opinion such a paradigm is not only ‘fools gold', it is in my opinion represents a giant step backward and will place thousands of young men at unnecessary risk.
So am I suggesting that pitch counts are meaningless and we should just throw them out? Of course not. What I am suggesting is that the common way they are applied is ineffective at best.
The challenge with instituting any universal standard for everyone, like pitch count, is that almost no two people are identical in any substantive way. We all are like snowflakes…unique and individual. While that fact of life is indeed the challenge we begin our discussion with today, it is not my major beef with pitch counts. The reality of one size does not fit all, simply underscores the need for reason, logic and common sense to return to the discussion on the implementation on pitch counts. After all, we all can point to at least a dozen things which ‘sounded like a good idea at the time but has since gone awry' in other areas of our lives. If we are not careful here, in my opinion, pitch counts have the potential for that as well.
If we all agreed that pitch counts were merely guidelines and we should utilize them as simply a default reference point to begin our discussion and then personalize the count for each and every pitcher based upon certain agreed upon general criteria ( examples listed below), then I would embrace pitch counts.
But that is absolutely NOT what happens.
If we all agreed that pitch counts were merely guidelines and we should utilize them as simply a default reference point to begin our discussion and then personalize the count for each and every pitcher based upon certain agreed upon general criteria ( examples listed below), then I would embrace pitch counts.
But that is absolutely NOT what happens.
They have become the story. They are viewed in most circles as THE answer…in fact they are viewed as THE savior of injury. Follow pitch counts and young arms will remain healthy. Don't follow them and injury is assured. But even more nefarious than this oversimplification, pitch counts have become a wedge issue…an issue used to punish, fire, sue, embarrass, reprimand and a stake for moral high ground…and that is unfortunate. Pitch counts used correctly have great promise but we are far from that now and in my opinion heading in the wrong direction.......Join StrengthCoach.com to access the full article and more!
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