3 Elbow Injuries For Baseball Pitchers

In this video, Scott Haase educated players, parents and coaches on 3 important elbow injuries that baseball pitchers may face.

Baseball pitchers try to avoid it, but sometimes are faced with different types of elbow injuries and Scott covers Tommy John surgery or a UCL injury, Little League Elbow, and Tennis Elbow for baseball players.

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Full Transcript (will update):

Let's talk about three really common elbow injuries that baseball pitchers hopefully never have to deal with, but I want you to be aware of so the first one here about Tommy, John, what is Tommy John, that was just the name given to the surgery of an elbow injury, the second one is going to be little league elbow, and then the third one is going to be tennis elbow. So each one is a little bit different. And I want to kind of explain to you the basic differences of so you can always talk to your doctor or physician or athletic trainer, or someone in the medical field that can help you out.

Tommy John Surgery (Injury to the UCL)

So first one, Tommy John, that is, again, the name of the surgery, Tommy John's surgery, that is done for a partial or complete tear of the UCL, it's a ligament on the inside of your elbow where guys have pain, and they get an MRI and see that there's an issue with the ligament in order to repair that or reconstruct it, they can do a Tommy John surgery. So that's actually a UCL tear is the actual injury. And again, Tom and John will be the surgery to help fix that, it's not going to be the first thing that they want to do, they're going to first try to do rest. And this is with all injuries, for the most part, rest is going to be first and or something might include, or they might just tell you the rest, the probably gonna recommend or maybe they refer you to a physical therapist to be doing exercises to strengthen the joint, the muscles around the elbow. And then lastly, would be the XR, X ray, MRI, those types of things. So the UCL tear, typically, if rest and mechanical issues and exercise, all that doesn't fix it. And there's still an issue, the options that go to our a PRP injection, so it's a platelet rich plasma injection, so they're just injecting something into here to help heal it. And also, the other one isn't the Tommy John surgery that they're going to do to try in repair that Tommy John tends to have a little bit longer recovery time than the injections. There was I can't remember the name of him right now. But there was a pitcher for the Yankees that pretty famously got the injection, and did not end up getting Tommy John, he's now pitch for a handful of years after that. That's a big one that you're gonna hear a lot about Tommy, John, you know, they get the people in the sleeve, or the big old brace where they can't move their arm and they're holding on to a ball or something that's going to be typically your Tommy John surgery, with the big scar right here.

Little League Elbow

The next one is going to be little league elbow, a little league elbow diagnosis can be an umbrella for a lot of different things, it could be some inflammation, it could be what it tends to be, which is a bone chip of some kind, it also could be a complete mon chip, it could be a partial bone chip, they say you know there's a chip in the growth plate or there's an issue in the growth plate, or there's something going on in the elbow typically tends to be on the inside again, and you'll see an X ray, either chip, or like a line in the elbow, or a little piece of the elbow bone that's come off. A lot of times, if you think of this is like a bone, and this is the end of the bone, like the head of the bone, they're gonna have, it's either like there's some blurry area or it's not completely white and full, it doesn't look as much like a fully grown muscle or something muscle bone. And within that, because it's not very, perfectly hard like an adult bone, you'll see like a little tear in there, which would actually be like a fracture, or again, a chip could be the issue or upwards blurry, there might be something in there too. So any of those things could be a little league elbow, any irritation in there, and you go and talk to the doctor, they can diagnose it as that's a little league elbow. And again, it's going to be hopefully rest takes care of it. But then they're also going to recommend or refer you to physical therapists to do exercises, then there's also a surgical component, which doesn't tend to happen with little league shoulder or semi literally elbow. But that could be an issue if there's something extremely bad going on in there. But that doesn't tend to be the issue where there's surgery needed.

Tennis Elbow

The last one is tennis, tennis elbow, and you don't see this a lot of times in the younger youth athletes, I've seen it definitely at the high school and college level, where you have guys where it's an aggravation over here, the muscles get inflamed, and it's just a pain that doesn't go away on the outside of your elbow. So if you kind of pull your hand out like this, this area of muscles that come across over top, this area, it's super aggravated, you can actually push it and it gets inflamed and sore. What stinks about that? Is doesn't go away fast. If you ever if you've ever heard about adult with tennis elbow, someone who actually plays tennis and has tennis elbow, it could come from a bunch of things. You don't have to play tennis, but that can be a real pain in the butt because I've heard as much as six to eight months for to completely go away. Sometimes there's a strap that can go around you'll see people wearing where as pressure and that can help some guys were asleep to help alleviate it. It doesn't tend to do long term damage. But what does it affect? Is there things that you're not able to do as well with that ham that affect other things. It can be like I said, pain, but really it's a pain in the forearm up here so ways to avoid that is again exercise so if you're not doing the exercise in advance you're more susceptible to getting something like that but most pitchers do tend to get injuries in the inside of their elbow I just want you to know that on the outside of the elbow there can be an issue as well.