Each baseball season, gamers from main leagues to youth ranges lose time due to accidents to the ulnar collateral ligament of their elbow. A College of Kansas researcher is co-author of a brand new examine that used superior expertise to measure the thickness of baseball gamers’ UCLs, discovering the ligaments had been thicker in pitchers versus place gamers and that the frequent assumption of sure arm slots being much less demanding on the elbow was not supported.
The findings, printed within the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports activities Drugs, assist show dangers for the damage and the way athletes, trainers and coaches can stop them.
The researchers carried out a examine with 22 NCAA Division I school baseball gamers over the course of a preseason. The gamers wore a sleeve with an embedded accelerometer that measured elbow torque and different variables whereas the gamers accomplished a minimum of 1,000 throws throughout information assortment. Ultrasounds had been taken of their elbows.
Outcomes confirmed that pitchers had thicker UCLs than nonpitchers and that each one gamers had thicker UCLs of their throwing arm versus nonthrowing arm. Moreover, the examine discovered {that a} participant’s arm slot, or the angle of the arm throughout their throwing movement, didn’t differ between pitchers and nonpitchers.
Pitchers routinely make extra throws—and extra high-intensity throws—than different gamers. That their UCL thickness was better was not a shock. However higher understanding how elements like elbow torque contribute to the situation of UCLs may also help gamers develop higher mechanics and trainers develop gamers with attributes that may cut back their danger of damage, mentioned Quincy Johnson, assistant professor of well being, sport & train science and assistant director of the Jayhawk Athletic Efficiency Laboratory at KU, and one of many examine’s authors.
Prevention is efficacious as gamers undergo UCL accidents at a excessive fee. In reality, the situation is even referred to as “Little League elbow” in youth sports activities.
“The aim of this examine got here from members of the teaching and sports activities drugs workers who wished to know if we may measure issues like ligament dimension, and if we may embrace elements like peak, weight and throwing mechanics to see in the event that they make a distinction,” Johnson mentioned.
Pitchers extra generally undergo UCL accidents, and the process that repairs it’s generally referred to as “Tommy John surgical procedure,” named after one of many first main league pitchers to endure the process. However positional gamers have skilled each the accidents and surgical procedures as nicely.
Earlier analysis has indicated a constructive relationship between UCL morphology, resembling thickness, and elevated UCL damage danger in 70 skilled baseball pitchers. And ultrasound expertise has proven to probably be capable of detect adjustments within the UCL previous to damage, therefore higher understanding what elements contribute to UCL thickness is efficacious, Johnson mentioned.
Standard baseball knowledge has additionally lengthy held that arm slots contribute to damage danger, with sure angles believed to be extra harmful or simpler on the throwing arm.
“There are plenty of youngsters being informed that there’s an optimum arm slot for a pitcher, or others are tougher on the arm, but it surely didn’t present that it had an impact on gamers’ UCL thickness in our examine,” Johnson mentioned.
Elements together with greater elbow torque, higher-effort throws, quantity of throws and pace of the arm throughout throws all correlated with a thicker UCL.
The examine was co-written by Calvin Smith of Syracuse College, Brittany Dowling of Sports activities Efficiency Heart, Chicago; Elias Williams of Oklahoma State College; Mitchel Magrini of Creighton College; Kase Pennartz of the College of North Texas; and Micheal Luera of Tarleton State College.
The examine individuals needed to meet the factors of not having accidents to their throwing arm or present signs within the arm. Eleven had been pitchers, and 11 had been nonpitchers.
Johnson mentioned the findings accomplish a number of issues, together with confirming thicker UCLs in pitchers versus nonpitchers and which elements did contribute to UCL morphology. In addition they may also help coaches, athletes and athletic trainers develop power and conditioning routines that assist gamers improve athletic efficiency, decrease their danger for damage and use higher throwing mechanics.
Moreover, the findings refute the frequent perception that elements resembling peak, weight and even-handedness as predictors for a correct arm slot for a given participant.
A former power and conditioning coach, Johnson hopes to proceed analysis into UCL damage danger elements resembling how the kind of pitch thrown impacts UCL morphology. The Jayhawk Athletic Efficiency Laboratory is a part of the Wu Tsai Human Efficiency Alliance, which examines human well being by understanding peak efficiency.
Johnson additionally just lately printed analysis on the particular physique composition, power and energy traits key to totally different positions on the soccer subject.
Finally, the UCL analysis may also help coaches and gamers cut back damage danger, which may lower your expenses and restoration time in addition to careers, as many younger gamers by no means absolutely come again from UCL accidents. Groups have developed approaches resembling most pitch counts to scale back danger, however extra might be accomplished.
“Is that this one of the simplest ways to go ahead, the place we’re routinely going by arms?” Johnson mentioned. “We have to proceed with a set of questions and concepts about issues like throw quantity and max effort throws to see if we are able to give you higher throwing growth at decrease ranges of the game.”
Extra info:
Calvin Smith et al, Affect of Throwing Kinematics on Ulnar Collateral Ligament Thickness in Collegiate Baseball Gamers, Orthopaedic Journal of Sports activities Drugs (2025). DOI: 10.1177/23259671251326030
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Pitchers have thicker ulnar collateral ligaments in elbows than different gamers, issue that dangers frequent damage (2025, June 11)
retrieved 11 June 2025
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