We see a lot of baseball players, so a lot of these guys come to use with elbow problems. In most cases, the doctors they’ve seen have said, flat-out, “NO LIFTING WEIGHTS.” This drives me nuts for a variety of reasons:

1. They’ve still got two good legs, one good arm, and a bunch of core musculature that needs to be strong and functional.

2. This recommendation implicitly means “Stay away from personal trainers and strength coaches.” It’s probably due to the fact that there are a lot of bonehead personal trainers out there who could do more harm than good, but the truth is that these services comprise more than just lifting weights. We do a lot of mobility and activation work and self-myofascial release on the foam roller.

Collectively, #1 and #2 demonstrate that this blanket recommendation includes an insanely ignorant omission, as the majority of elbow problems can be attributed to mobility and strength deficits at the shoulder. You can train a shoulder a thousand different ways without even involving elbow motion – let alone challenging it sufficiently to cause a problem. In fact, I’d estimate that you could prevent 90% of elbow problems in baseball guys if we simply taught all of them how to sleeper stretch in their early teenage years:

I’d strongly encourage you to check out this article I wrote, where I go over the common mistakes folks make when performing the sleeper stretch.

3. This recommendation flat-out ignores the specific nature of the overwhelming majority of elbow problems in throwing athletes. Let me elaborate..

In my estimation, 95% of baseball players with elbow pain couldn’t elicit their pain in a weight room if they wanted to; seriously! The reason is that this elbow pain is typically mechanical in nature; that is, it’s only aggravated by specific activities (in their case, throwing).

Believe it or not, I have had guys do everything from pull-ups, to dumbbell bench presses, to rows, to push-ups, to grip work just days out from elbow surgery. It isn’t true in every case, but it’s definitely the majority. And, they can all get diesel in the lower body during this time period.

Some great related reading for you:

Inefficiency vs. Pathology
Lay Back to Throw Gas

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