New recommendations were made based on these results. Adherence to the recommendations may reduce the incidence of significant injury to adolescent pitchers.
The risk of a youth pitcher sustaining a serious throwing injury within 10 years is 5%. Limiting the number of innings pitched per year may reduce the risk of injury. Young baseball pitchers are encouraged to play other positions as well but might avoid playing catcher.
Because the resultant joint loads were similar between the fastball and curveball, this study did not indicate that either pitch was more stressful or potentially dangerous for a collegiate pitcher. The low kinetics in the change-up implies that it is the safest.
The curveball may not be more potentially harmful than the fastball for youth pitchers. This finding is consistent with recent epidemiologic research indicating that amount of pitching is a stronger risk factor than type of pitches thrown.
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