Baseball

Injuries tend to come from abrasions, sprains and strains to the ankle and knee, with a high suffering of overuse injuries to the elbows and shoulders especially for pitchers.

As you will be playing both a fielding and batting role, cares should be taken to implement these movements into your warm-up phase prior to any stretching. Warm-up gradually with light running and mobility exercises especially for the trunk, arm and shoulders for 15 minutes before performing the warm-up stretches.

Simply throwing a ball is not a warm-up for a pitcher, they should spend a minimum of 10 minutes skipping and performing swimming motions with their arms, i.e. front crawl and backstroke before even picking up a ball. Over 50% of pitchers suffer from chronic elbow pain, as a result of overuse and poor warm-up. Simulate the throwing action at a light speed first without a ball, flicking the fingers out at the end of the movement, then progress to throwing a ball soft at first, and then gradually build up the velocity.

Fielders have and should take full advantage of the opportunity to stretch and stay mobile whilst on the playing diamond, as the goal for baseball stretching should be continuation, i.e. once warmed and stretch active dynamic stretching should continue throughout the game.

The batting team are generally in a dugout, and as such keeping the body warm through activity can be hard, staying warm passively using extra clothing will help keep your muscles supple. Dynamic stretching movements can be performed 5 minutes prior to walking out of the dugout, remember that you will need to use your legs to sprint between bases, so don't skip the stretches for your lower body.

SPORTS SPECIFIC STRETCHES FOR FIELDERS