The Effects of Hidden Injuries

Well I've just finished up the week of double sessions for both men's and women's soccer teams which is the reason why there has been a definitive lack of posting lately for me. During this time, as usual, I am always amazed as to the length that athletes will try to hide their injuries from the medical personnel while others will often complain about the smallest thing.

Even though Major League players are used to medical personnel, this doesn't change their attitudes any bit from the college athletes I work with on a daily basis. Even though having to deal with the most minor of issues is at times annoying, I'd much rather have that then have athletes hide their injuries or at least hide the extent of their injuries from me.

I had an athlete lie to me about the knee buckling on them, which ended up being an ACL tear most likely. The athlete didn't tell me about how often the knee was buckling and because of it, they could not only be facing surgery to repair the ACL, they may also be facing meniscal surgery or surgery to the cartilage of the knee.

All major leaguers go through the same thing, whether it be hiding elbow pain or shoulder soreness or even foot pain. Think of Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, or even Andy Pettitte. Hiding injuries can only last for so long but it always catches up to you.

This is why I think that Pitch FX has such a possibility to help revolutionize medical care. Some teams are already using biomechanical analysis in their pitchers but I don't know how many are using PFX. I think the ultimate goal and eventual gold standard Will Carroll somewhat touched upon. I think that overlaying the PFX with live video is key but also integrating that with pre and post biomechanical analysis. I think this is key in order to truly understand the effects of fatigue on pitching. Hopefully I'll be able to examine it more with PFX soon.