I was diagnosed with a torn labrum last week. My mechanics are fairly sound and I took care of my arm pretty well. I don’t throw very hard at all (73-76) and my doctor explained the tear to me that the extreme laxity in my shoulder contributed heavily to this. I might have misunderstood him but I’m kind of confused if this can even happen. Also when I do get the surgery they said they will be tightening up the shoulder joint. Is that normal for this sort of injury? To give you an idea of flexible my arms are, I can touch my thumb to my forearm and if someone were to take my arms and cross them behinds back I can overlap them very far. My question is just that can this “extreme laxity” as they described it contribute to not only me not throwing hard but also being more susceptible to injury. I had some disappointing results to using weighted baseballs and also long tossing. Not zero results but very little. After finding this site and doing some research I attacked a long toss program pretty hard and threw all summer with pretty much no pain. I would have days but I felt pretty good. I experienced this similar pain a little in highschool and it resurfaced itself in the fall of 2012 and into spring 2013. For example at my best this summer I was squatting 310, I could dead-lift around 275 while weighing 150 pounds. From reading a lot of what Kyle Boddy said on his website I know one of my big problems is that I didn’t have enough muscle mass. I’m just curious how being extremely flexible and also having very loose joints effects a pitcher. I would think it would be good but I’m not sure.
Trainer Rant- One other thing I would like to add to this thread is to never trust completely what a trainer or someone who is not a real medical professional says. I was told time and time again that what I had was tendinitis and was nothing to worry about. I did my own research but my symptoms did seem to add up to labrum tear. I had a pretty low level of pain, other people told me basically I was being soft, I knew that what I felt was not right. I kept complaining about it and only when I demanded I see a doctor did I finally get some closure on it. Just because you don’t throw hard doesn’t mean you can’t get hurt. No matter what anyone tells you, if something doesn’t feel right it doesn’t. Now instead of going from our team’s #1 guy and being able to find a place to play next year I have two years of junior college under my belt with not very many innings, a torn labrum, and I am going to struggle to find a place to finish my collegiate career at. I don’t necessarily regret pitching through it, I regret letting other people tell me what I was feeling wasn’t a legitimate injury. I apologize for my thoughts being all over the place, have a lot to get out.Thanks for any input.[/b]