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Comment by tannerj | Hacker News Reader

I don't know about softball, but I played baseball from the time I was 4 until I was 19 and the biggest change in youth baseball has been monitoring pitch counts for youth pitchers. If I remember correctly, Softball pitchers usually have trouble with their knees while baseball pitchers have arm trouble. I still have arm trouble and I had parents who put my safety first and did the best they could to take care of my arm. Please do some research on the topic to make sure your daughter doesn't hurt herself. I only speak up because I saw it happen over and over again growing up. Youth sports are awesome, I got to travel all over the country playing, but I still have issues almost 10 years after quitting.

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Yeah, I cut back significantly after talking to a cousin of mine who played college ball.

At first I was a bit frustrated because she was really interested in pitching, as was roughly half of her team. So when you play 3 games a week for a 4 month season, if you spread it around (like you should at a young age - give everyone a chance) you have each kid throwing about 2 innings a week. (6 inning games, ~8 kids who want to pitch on a 14 player team)

What's your thoughts on the right amount? Maybe a game a week and really concentrate on form and technique? (No fancy pitches, just straight with accuracy.)

It's difficult for me to say. After I wrote the first comment, I remembered hearing long ago that the reason softball pitchers typically don't have arm trouble is that the under handed motion is a natural motion, while overhanded is very unnatural. With baseball you typically don't want to do anything that causes extra tension on the elbow (i.e. curve balls) at a young age. So, I only threw fastballs and change-ups until I was in middle school. You actually can cause a lot of ball movement with altering grip pressure. (but that's off topic.) I'd recommend talking to an orthopedic specialist if you have access. I had a bad case of tendonitis in my early teens and I remember seeing an otho doctor who had dealt with a lot of sports injuries. Also, reach out to a local college coach and ask. As always, be careful with advice off the internet, people are idiots. I know that from middle school on, we had very structured "bullpens" that would increase in pitch count as we got closer to the season starting up and that helped a lot. Unfortunately, it's been a long time and my memory is fuzzy. I also know that it's not one-to-one with softball. I found this pdf for Babe Ruth pitching rules[0]. If nothing else, I wouldn't exceed what they say.

[0]http://files.leagueathletics.com/Text/Documents/5200/27001.p...

In general, much of sports injuries have to do with improper recovery cycles. So, although most skills-based practice (such as music) benefit from daily practice due to the way the brain adapts, this has to be somehow balanced against the body's need for recovery. So practicing language is great every day or several times a day, while power lifting starts with 4 recovery days per week and more recovery tends to be added as the person nears their genetic potential.

How to apply this precisely to martial arts and sports which have such intense mental and physical training/adaptation requirements, and adjusting for age and other individual considerations is way beyond what I can speak knowledgably about. I would recommend Thomas Kurtz's "The Science of Sports Training" but I found most of it impractical and incomprehensible. But what I think is the most important takeaway from his work is:

- recovery is everything

- sometimes a different, light activity, speeds recovery more than full rest

- so athletes' workloads should by cycled, they shouldn't do the same thing day after day, and it should also vary by season

- but really, recovery is everything, never underestimate how important recovery is

Maybe not related to your softball injury point, but women in general are far more at risk for knee injuries than men. It's even more problematic in sports like soccer and basketball.

And I empathize with your arm problems. I'm still feeling the nagging effects of my Little League shoulder injury, which happened in a game where my coach showed up late and I didn't have as much time as normal to warm up before it started...

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