The article “Proactive programs can keep pitchers healthy throughout the season” by Scifers and Menhart provides various techniques and advice in developing the proper exercise regimen for maintaining and ensuring pitching performance from the onset of a pitcher’s career all the way to its zenith. Upon closer inspection it does appear to contain some gaps in information that should be taken into account when creating proper training regimens. For one thing it lacks sufficient data on what proper exercises should be accomplished on athletes of varying ages, it lacks advice on proper upper extremity exercises for pitchers that are already injured and it neglects to take into account the development of bone chips through extreme physical exertion which can injure a player if it is not immediately identified.
While the various exercises indicated within such as development of proper strengthening, balance and stretching exercises are inherently beneficial to any pitcher’s training regimen they neglect to take into account subsequent performance deterioration that happens over time as a result of age. What must be understood is that a lot of baseball players tend to play well past their prime due to the various lucrative contracts associated with professional baseball. As a direct result of this eventual muscle and bone deterioration through constant abuse can and will happen despite the best efforts of coaches to wean their players off too many pitches per season. Further examination of the Scifers and Menhart article neglects to mention any reference to proper upper extremity exercises for aging players and as a result it can be assumed that the same exercises applicable to younger players can be done with older players. The inherent problem with this particular type of conclusion is that in terms of overall strength, endurance and flexibility younger players tend to outpace and outmatch the capabilities of older players especially in cases where training is considered. Implementing the same type of exercises will not yield the same results due to differences in body types and as such other types of exercises should be implemented to take into account cases where older players are concerned.
Another factor that should be taken into consideration is the fact that injured players are still often utilized in subsequent games despite injuries due to either their inherent skill or a distinct lack of players in that particular position. In the case of pitchers this translates into the need to condition one’s self in between games which would definitely require a different set of upper body conditioning exercises. While the article of Scifers and Menhart provides numerous details on how to perform exercises to avoid injury it neglects to mention anything in direct relation to what exercises should be performed when injured. This is actually rather surprising since at the beginning of the article Scifers and Menhart elaborate on how a lot of pitchers get injured yet apparently they neglect to mention how proper train the upper body of a pitcher that is injured.
Finally what must be taken into consideration is the fact that any subsequent overexertion of the body in the form of a physically straining exercise can create the possibility of bone chips getting embedded in certain parts of the arms or areas. Such occurrences, while rare, do happen often enough in players that overexert certain parts of their body where there is a continuous and repeated strain on the bone. The paper neglects to mention this and instead focuses on musculature and skeletal injury yet neglects to mention about secondary types of injuries that may occur.
Based on what has been presented so far it can be seen that while the article of Scifers and Menhart is definitely informative it lacks distinct vital information regarding aspects of injuries and upper body exercises that should be taken into consideration when creating a comprehensive instruction on how to properly train pitchers. It is based on this that this paper recommends that the missing sections be included into the original paper of Scifers and Menhart in order to create a more complete account of what must be done to properly train and assist pitchers.
Reference List
Scifers, J. & Menhart, P. (2004). Proactive programs can keep pitchers healthy throughout the season. Armed and ready. Vol. 13 (7). pp – 47.