Velocity Rx Podcast
Velocity RX: Help Us Save One Million Arms!
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Velocity Rx Podcast
Saving Arms: The Mechanics vs. Strength Debate
Two sports medicine experts pull back the curtain on why young baseball pitchers are getting injured at alarming rates—and it's not what most coaches and trainers think.
Drs. Kevin McGovern and Clay Hammons dive deep into real case studies that reveal the true culprits behind baseball's arm injury epidemic. Through detailed analysis of an 18-year-old pitcher with "dead arm" syndrome and a senior with a partially torn UCL, they demonstrate how poor mechanics—not lack of strength—initiated these preventable injuries.
The doctors methodically dismantle the popular notion that strength training alone can overcome faulty mechanics. "If you have a wheel with five lug nuts and three are stripped off and two are loose and it's wobbling... hitting the gas will just make the wheel fall off faster," explains Dr. McGovern. This vivid analogy perfectly captures why focusing on velocity before fixing mechanical issues is a recipe for disaster.
Parents will find particularly valuable guidance on what to look for in a proper assessment, including red flags that signal it's time to find different care. Both doctors emphasize the critical importance of immediate test-retest protocols that demonstrate measurable improvement in a single session. They also warn about facilities requiring injury waivers—a clear sign to "run."
Whether you're a parent, coach, or athlete, this episode offers crucial insights that challenge conventional wisdom about avoiding arm injuries. The doctors' shared mission comes through powerfully: young players should choose when they stop playing baseball, not have that decision forced upon them by preventable injuries. Follow their systematic approach—assess impairments, treat them, master mechanics, then build velocity—to keep arms healthy for the long haul.
The Velocity Rx podcast mission is to help save one million arms by giving the very best mechanical, health, and arm care information to it's listeners.
Hey everybody, this is Dr Kevin McGovern and this is another VelocityRx podcast. I'm here with my colleague, Dr Clay Hammons. Before we begin, please like and subscribe to this. It helps both Clay and I spread the message to try to save a million arms. So today, another podcast regarding real-life case studies on injured athletes that we have both encountered and how maybe we would have taken a different approach or did something completely different or whatever to get or stop or prevent these injuries from occurring. So, Clay, thanks for jumping on again. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me on Kev. I appreciate it too.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, we'll start with you. I got a usually in the group. You should tell I'm the emotional guy. When there's something goes on, I go crazy. But I got this, this text from from Dr Hammonds, and I'm like almost blew me away, because there was actually some emotion there and I'm like, oh, something must be really wrong, so uh you know, without with you know names to protect the innocent. Give us you know kind of a what, what happened and what's what. What are you, what are you seeing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, kid, I know and love, um, you know, treated them off and on for for the past few years. Um, phenomenal athlete, dual sport athlete, QB, pitches Um, I mean, he's going to go to college for either baseball or football, just whatever he decides. Um, I mean, he's going to go to college for either baseball or football, just whatever he decides. Um, yeah, so I get a call from his dad and um dad's like, hey, you know how old is the kid?
Speaker 1:I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:He's going into a senior year.
Speaker 1:So he's ready to go to college, okay.
Speaker 2:He's, I think, freshly 18. Okay, um, but you know trying to. He's at that point now. You know summer ball trying to get some looks. So ramp up Velo. You know he's gotten into pitching and I think that you know where he went to the Velo did that right. I mean, he got Velo. He was hitting 89, 88, 89,. You know strikes throwing well.
Speaker 1:As a junior, that's healthy velocity. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so I was like, all right, all that sounds good. I was like what's going on? He's like, well, he's got like dead arm, like his, you know, pain in the shoulder bicep strength's gone. I said, okay, well, you know, bring him in, let me check him out. Check him out, his rotator cuff's completely inhibited. He's got about probably a three plus ER strength on MMT Bicep was a wreck.
Speaker 2:Brachialysis was a wreck. Trigger points upper trap was a wreck. Trigger point cuff was a wreck. Supraspin was a wreck. Trigger points upper trap was a wreck. Trigger point cuff was a wreck. Supraspinatus infraspinatus, you know, um, negative for label testing, negative for rotator cuff testing, um, so I was like, well, it's nothing, you know, crazy serious. But there's, there's got to be a reason why. I said do you have any? Do you have any video that you can send me of his mechanics? And he said, sure, yeah, we were at. You know, we were at a tournament this weekend. Here you go. So he sent me a couple videos over, one from when he was healthy and then one when it was arm was hurting. They weren't the greatest videos and I can, you know, pass them along and show you, but I'm just looking at it and I was like, all right, I'm gonna look at these and see what I can see. And what do I see? The first thing is a lefty is that he goes down and that foot strike, front front strike. He's here.
Speaker 1:So he is in the uh. For those who might be listening to this, he is in the ultimate fighting championship, Kimura, which is abduction and internal rotation of the arm, or the inverted w or the m, whatever which whatever letter, yeah, my tommy john formula is the truck yeah right, some call it, some call it the kiss of death, some call it the tommy john twist. I mean, there's all bad, all names, it's all good, all things all things bad, okay.
Speaker 2:So my thought I was like oh well, there, there it is evident. You know your arm's very, very late. I've never seen anybody with that, with that movement's arm, be on time at front foot strike never I mean you can't you this is impossible.
Speaker 2:Right, it's impossible, then we get here and then we get here and then we then we push and rotate really fast and we get a lot of strain on the shoulder and the and the elbow and his his came in the form of the shoulder and was trickling down into the bicep brachialis and I said well why? You know, this is what this is. What kind of irks me about what's going on now with a lot of this training, this VELO training, is we're not doing a proper mechanics assessment, or maybe they see it, but they're going okay well, I got to get VELO for this kid quick because he needs the looks and we're just going to kind of bypass the mechanics and make them throw harder with these faulty mechanics, which which, to me, is putting the cart before the horse.
Speaker 2:Like we've, we've got to address.
Speaker 1:We've got a thousand percent, yeah, we've got to address the mechanics first, right mechanics impairments.
Speaker 2:There may be other impairments there, you know as well with the body. So we we have to address that first before I can make you move faster. If you have faulty mechanics and you're trying to make those faulty mechanics move faster, you're already set up to get hurt and then if you try to make it go faster, you're only going to make the injury happen faster. Great.
Speaker 2:And that's what's happened, and so you know, now I'm having to, you know, step in and say all right, we've got to address your arm path, we've got to get your arm flipped up earlier at front foot strike, so that then you're ready to throw the baseball and not stuck, this is just stuck. You can't do anything from here.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you some questions on this case. So you mentioned dead arm. So I've seen some advertisements, some Facebook ads about people talking about dead arm and in the solution they're not talking about mechanics, they're talking about it's a weakness problem, it's a strength issue. So you just have said, you've just acknowledged that there's a strength issue, but the root cause isn't weakness. The weakness is caused by poor movement.
Speaker 2:Right, right. So there's not a true strength issue, it's just inhibited, it's inhibited neurologically inhibited. So with this kid, you know, I took him, then I treated him Um and after the treatment our strength tests went back to five out of five on. Er.
Speaker 1:And what did you do? What did you? What did you do with him?
Speaker 2:Um, we did, we did some spinal manipulation. Um, so, you know, he, he didn't have really really good extension, so just some spinal manipulation. I did some dry needling with STEM to his supraspinatus, to his brachialis, to his long head of the biceps and to his infraspinatus.
Speaker 1:To essentially flip the switch and turn these muscles on. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So address the trigger points, flush out the acetylcholine, which is the chemical that kind of keeps it in that contracted state, Right, and then just flip them back on Right so. And so we didn't do any strengthening to make him stronger.
Speaker 1:So let's pull that string. So let's say I came, let's say it was my, my child had that and you started immediately doing band work, closed chain work, strengthening exercises. What would have happened to that kid? Would he have gotten better or worse? He would have still been weak, still been weak Yep.
Speaker 2:And then you know, depending on how he's doing his bands, if he's really upper trap dominant with it, then it's going to make it worse. So that's you know. You have to address the impairments and with him, we have to address the mechanics. First, Right.
Speaker 2:right, because I always say if you have a lamborghini and you put two more cylinders in there, but you still have a bad front end alignment, doesn't matter, the car is never going to run correctly it's never going to go faster yeah, if I got a wheel with five lug nuts and three of them are stripped off and two are loose and it's wobbling right, and then I'm like, oh, I hit the gas, hey, let's go faster, it's just gonna make the wheel fall off faster. Right, that's, that's essentially what's what's happening with this, with this kid, did he? Did he pick up velo quickly? Yes, that's good, but his mechanics are still faulty, and now he's hurt.
Speaker 1:Now he's hurt. Now he's hurt, which is the key. So you and I had another. So there was another person. I couldn't really understand where he was coming from, but he was definitely, I think, more on the attack mode of my Tommy John injury formula of drift getting your center of gravity out too far, shrug and dragging your back leg. And he again, these strength guys talk that strength is the end-all be-all and he had made a comment that well, if the guy in the video was stronger, somehow those would negate those movement issues. So thank God you had chimed in and said the exact same thing of putting the cart before the horse. So I'm always asking well, in this case where he had this inverted W and he had.
Speaker 1:What do you say? Three out of five strength to it. What was it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably three plus.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that's barely 50%. It's just over 50% strength for those playing at home. And let's say miraculously which actually couldn't happen you got him to five out of five strength. Would that have fixed the root cause? Would that have made his arm on time? Nope, never, right, never.
Speaker 2:So the injury is still going to happen because your mechanics are still the way that they were yeah, I don't I don't understand why people are so negative about mechanics I really didn't get that guy's point. It was like yeah, just get stronger, dude, all these kids lift well speaking, if you.
Speaker 1:If you looked at that gentleman's page, in his top pin to his page, he had a kid doing a squat and he literally said it's not a perfect squat. So the kid was literally he lost his lordosis and he was not initiating the movement from the pelvis, he was literally lifting it from the upper back. So if it's not perfect, why are you adding weight to the exercise?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:I don't get it. Or why are you doing weight? That's too much for him not to do it. Perfect one or the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then we wonder why these kids are getting hurt. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're overloading them into faulty movement patterns.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Right, it's all about. Everything you're doing is training to do the movement faster or more efficient. But the movement has got to be good or it's just going to run off the rails faster.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean, look, I mean, really it boils down to this there's a certain sequence in which you should approach a client or a patient you know whatever you want to call them and that is eval or assess. Okay, what are your impairments? If you have video of their throwing mechanics, look at it. That's that Okay. Treat the impairments. Address the mechanics Right, master the mechanics, because you've got to do that over and over and over again at decreased intensities before we build up. Once you get good at that, then we can talk about VLO.
Speaker 1:Then we can keep retesting and retesting, and retesting.
Speaker 2:Then we can talk about moving faster. Then we can talk about hey, let's get a lot stronger in that action or movement, right, but if I don't know my body's position first, then I can't make it go faster.
Speaker 1:So, to you and I, what you just said is complete common sense. To me it's simple, but we're attacked all the time that we that no, no, we don't know we're talking about. It's strong, it's this, it's everything, it's everything but mechanics like and I don't understand, and I think it's that's the only thing. It is because that's the first thing that has to happen. We have to move correctly before we can do anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what say you? Yeah, I mean, it's yes, like you said. You know, to me and you this is simple, it makes perfect sense, logical, right. But for some reason, you know a lot of guys out there just want to skip steps. They don't either want to put in the work, because it does take extra time. It does take extra time and, you know, it seems like everybody wants the quick fix. How can I jump up five more miles an hour, right? Well, you can do that, right. But are you? Are you doing it in a healthy way? And obviously the numbers.
Speaker 1:the numbers play out that that's not happening, because everyone's like you know. And then people talk about oh, it's the pitch count, it's well before that. It's the, it's the movement, it's the movement.
Speaker 2:It's the training.
Speaker 1:It's this, it's that, before you even get to the pitch, count.
Speaker 2:It's not pitch count, because if it was pitch count, then why didn't Nolan Ryan's arm fall off?
Speaker 1:Right, or Fernando Valenzuela's 10 innings in the World Series.
Speaker 2:You've got guys throwing less pitches and getting hurt more Excellent, 100% Right.
Speaker 2:It's not the pitch count, it's, it's how we're moving Exactly. And you know that's it, and you know I'll be another case. I got another kid right now. He's coming into his senior year, he's six five, you know very, very promising and filmed it and I'm like man his front leg is, you know, strides and gets out on that leg. Then it went straight trundellenberg. I'm like he's got no, no way. Oh dude, straight from dylanbury. He's got no gluteus. So I get him in the clinic next week. So just so trundellenberg.
Speaker 1:Essentially, if you've seen anyone who's ever had, you can get it from a hip injury too, but a stroke that the side of their when they walk, that side of the hip will literally drop. Yeah, boom, boom, and that's because you've got a weak gluteus medius.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so yeah.
Speaker 2:So I get them in the clinic to test the gluteus medius and get them in position. I say, okay, I want you to hold that there and get him in position. I said, okay, I want you to hold that there. Nothing Dropped. I'm like, wow, again, not weak, no, Inhibited.
Speaker 1:Especially at 6'5", he must have pretty long lever arms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, huge. So go and look at it further. He's got zero spinal extension. I mean not much at all. Pelvis was torqued and rotated, rotated, so I had to get him in alignment, improve his extension. This was all in one visit. Improve his extension. Okay, let's go check again. Perfect, yep. So again, if if I try to make that kid throw faster with those impairments in that body, he's going to be injured faster.
Speaker 1:Wow, His arm's going to hurt.
Speaker 2:So you know it's just guys assess, find the impairments, treat the impairments, master the movement and then go fast. We can't skip those steps.
Speaker 1:Nope. So, speaking of assessment, so a couple weeks ago I picked up a client who has a I'm not sure what percentage, but any percentage UCL tear is not good. So we talk about assessment. So this gentleman went to a physical therapist and I'll say this again, all physical therapy is not the same, okay. And then he went to this, you know, velocity building, and I have his picture up on the screen right now looking at his back and he went to one of these velocity building centers.
Speaker 1:Right, and this goes back to what you know, my dad was a safety manager of a chemical plant and he would say some accidents don't happen, they're caused. And I kind of took that. You know, as we've just been talking about now, injuries don't happen, just happen, they're caused. Right and well, both. You just had two injuries that caused the causation and now we have a third.
Speaker 1:So just looking at his shoulder blade posture here, you know I always you know I'm not the smartest guy in the room, I like dumbing things down. You know I'm not the smartest guy in the room, I like dumbing things down. So let's go back to basic math, where one side of the equation has got equal to the other in algebra and right now we don't have an equation that equals, and he's a righty. So I don't know if the left side is bad, the right side is bad whatever it is, but we have vastly different looking shoulder blade posture right. So this is a kid who allegedly went through multiple, went through physical therapy, went through multiple tests at this facility and you know, in my shoulder blade, you know, coordination test, it's all over the place with how he moves it, with how he moves, and again, I would not have cleared this kid to throw yet until those were fixed. He's very upper trap dominant, he's got a loss of lat function and when he gets into 90 degrees of abduction he's got big time over facilitated upper traps, which is which is part of my part of my shrug formula.
Speaker 1:All of this then added up to a, you know, a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament which could have probably been prevented had he moved correctly. But what they did was you know, I saw the mechanics they just piled on this bad moving basic motion and now the kid is hurt. But we don't hear about those right, those don't. No one comes on and says, hey, look what we just did. This kid got hurt and blah, blah, blah, like no one.
Speaker 1:No one talks about those. Everybody likes the clicks of the running guns and the 93-mile-an-hour. You know blah, blah, blah, but no one talks about. I mean, I look at this, you look at this, and it's basic to us that you have to move correctly and assess, and now here is an injury that could have been prevented. So you know, the kid may have to go a PG year, Like it just costs time now and money for something and our and that doesn't count the money that was spent on the expert physical therapist and this other place that they, that they went to, right, that's right and this is what makes me mad.
Speaker 1:This is what makes me mad because this to me I'm looking at like any, like you didn't have to the father's like yeah, yeah, he's not, he's right. And I said were you there during all these testing? No, they wouldn't allow me. Oh, then I asked another question. They make you sign an injury waiver. Oh yeah, they did Run Run. Clay, do you have any injury waivers at your clinic? No, clay, do you have?
Speaker 2:any injury waivers at your clinic. Uh no, I have a guarantee that that you, that you're going to get better.
Speaker 1:Exactly, I have the same thing, no one has if you're signing an injury waiver, parents run.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean yeah, my whole thing is you know, I'm going to work with you for a set amount of time. Um, if we have not achieved all of your goals in that set amount of time, then I'm going to keep working with you for no added cost.
Speaker 1:Same here. That's the same exact guarantee. That's how I roll me too.
Speaker 2:You know, put your money where your mouth is. Yeah, if you see somebody going, oh, there's an injury waiver like hold on my life is turned off, there's an injury way like, yeah, that's just like yeah right, I may. I may hurt your child and I need you to sign here right no no, absolutely not. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 1:I'm going somewhere else so you know parents seem to. You know there's a lot of pressure on parents. I get it. And then you know parents are part of this problem too, because even when given the right information, they still choose wrong. So how do we get a parent to understand that there's a problem and then what they have to do to get the right help? What would you say?
Speaker 2:Like how do I approach that here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what would you yeah, what would you? What would you yeah?
Speaker 2:Well one, I have the parents there with me in the room with their, with their child, and so and so, and so they see the testing, they see, okay, you know, okay, this is what's wrong.
Speaker 2:This is why, all right, this is what we have to do. All right, this is the time frame that we're that we're expecting it to take, okay, so I just lay it all out there Lots and lots of education, agreed, lots and lots of time which you and I are able to do, because, you know, we work in a model that's one-on-one um, versus going in a big box PT clinic where it's one-on-three and they don't and they don't and they don't have that time with that that client or patient, um. So yeah, you know, for me it's just I do, I do the same. You know, boring exam on everyone, um, and it's and it's, and it's boring and it's lengthy, but it's thorough. And you know, we say, okay, these are your impairments, this is why you're hurt, this is what it's going to take to fix it. And just explain that over. I mean, I just kind of talk in circles as I'm, as I'm going to always get back to the root cause and what we have to fix.
Speaker 2:They may have elbow pain or shoulder pain, but getting them to understand that, oh well, their ankle's not moving well or their spine's not moving well, they don't have glute control. We have to address all of these things so that their arm can be healthy things so that their arm can be healthy. And then we have to break down the mechanics and teach proper mechanics first, which is what I just did with a 12 year old. It was, it was amazing. Yesterday we threw we threw our second live live pin Um and we got to a hundred percent intensity. Been working with this kid after little league elbow for probably five weeks now and and he's fully better, fully good and no pain, much better mechanics. Oh, and guess what?
Speaker 2:he picked up five miles an hour oh wow, look at that so from being injured now he picked up five miles an hour so the velo comes if you're, if you're sequencing the body to move better there's no free lunch. And it's healthy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what I would say to that? Well, parents, look for test retest, like Clay had mentioned. Hey, we found a weak blah-de-blah or whatever it is. We found a weak glute and then the person who you're going to see should be able to do something that should immediately make that glute turn on to be stronger. If they can't do that, you're in the wrong place. Now I don't mean it doesn't have to be perfect, but, like Clay said, we had a gluteus medius that was weak. As soon as I adjusted the spine and leveled off the pelvis, we had an immediate return of strength, right, and that's what should happen when we have inhibition or anything, even if it's a range of motion issue. There should be something that that clinician or person should do, that there should be an immediate return, immediate positive result, or you're in the wrong spot, would you agree with that 100%?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if you're going somewhere that's not assessing, treating and then reassessing to see if it's better, also run.
Speaker 1:Run, run.
Speaker 2:Because I mean, that's the one thing that I want to know is, if I do certain treatment or modality on a patient, did that just improve you or did it make you worse? Because if it made you worse, we're not doing that. We need to go back to the drawing board. Typically, I get it right and it gets better, and then we go okay, now we can apply that to function. Okay, now we have to learn, now that that's turned on. Now we have to apply that over into functional movement and here's how we move it in function, so that what I always do okay, find an impairment make it better. How do I apply that to pitching right?
Speaker 2:one thousand percent. How do I apply that to? If you know, getting out of a chair, I don't know whatever it is when I'm working with whoever it is to to accomplish whatever goal or solution. Now we have to go and apply that over to function, and so that should be what a skilled or expert clinician is doing with you. Absolutely. Go find another one.
Speaker 1:Exactly Well, thank you, sir. So, in wrapping up, parents, there's a causation to most of these injuries that are out there, especially in your baseball pitcher, and there certainly is preventability and you have to know what to look for. Hopefully, this episode showed you, or told you, exactly what to look for. So, clay, how do people find you if they want to work with?
Speaker 2:you, yeah, so so on Instagram you can reach out to me at Performance Solutions Rehab. Feel free to email me, clay, at PerformanceSolutionsRehabcom Facebook, clay Hammons, or you can DM me there. You dm me at my facebook page performance solutions and rehab facebook page. Just anything you got, any question you got? Please reach out.
Speaker 1:I'm always here to help yeah, absolutely doesn't mind, doesn't have to be uh doesn't have to leave a question under this change. Yep, and leave a question under this, uh just just anything.
Speaker 2:I'll shoot you straight. Same for you. I know you would too. We just really want kids to be healthy, playing the sport that they love. That's what we're here for. We're here to do it the right way.
Speaker 1:I always say I want your son to choose when he stops playing baseball and not have an injury. Choose it for him. So, again, like and subscribe this podcast. You can always comment on YouTube. I get back to people as quickly as I can and uh, thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. Clay, thanks for jumping on buddy.
Speaker 2:Thanks Kevin, thanks guys.
