External Rotation, Developing and Stretching

I recently had a conversation with one of our players about manually stretching the external rotation (ER) of the throwing shoulder, and why we don't do it in our program. Per Eric Cressey and CSP, "Want to irritate a labrum, biceps tendon, or the undersurface of the rotator cuff? Stretch a thrower in extreme external rotation and stimulate the peel-back (forearm lay-back) mechanism." He also goes on to outline some alternative ways and drills to increase ER like improving scapular retraction as well as thoracic spine mobility, and last but not least...throw more! Says Cressey, "Pitchers gain a considerable amount of glenohumeral external rotation over the course of a competitive season simply from throwing."

I like this quote from Phil Rosengren of BetterPitching.com on manually stretching into ER, "So when you think about it, actively stretching your arm where it's already getting loose on its own doesn't make much sense. You're just creating more instability in the joint, putting you at greater risk of injury." See the full article here.

Rosengren also refers to a study done on close to fifty collegiate baseball players, in which ER was measured over the course of a season (pre-fall, pre-spring and post-spring) and compared to Internal Rotation (IR) of the shoulder. Long story short, the study goes on to detail that healthy pitchers gained ER over the course of the year while IR either decreased or in some cases remained the same.

Focusing more on maintaining internal rotation (typically pitchers lose IR while gaining ER) of a pitcher's arm is much more vital to keeping him healthy than manually stretching into external rotation. Evident in the 2011 study of 122 professional pitchers, that found pitchers who displayed glenohumeral internal rotation deficit (GIRD) were twice as likely to get injured as those who didn't.  There are a few devices on the market to help with stimulating IR - in my opinion, simplest way to do improve GIRD? Sleeper stretch, generic yet effective!

I'd like to leave you with this video by Eric Cressey, on three of the more common baseball warm-up mistakes, enjoy!

Until Next Time...

Follow @33ccastro