Chicago, Ill. (April 9, 2009) – The city that invented softball has released a groundbreaking medical study on women’s softball. And its results are telling.
“Medically men’s and women’s softball are not created equal,” says Dr. Tony Romeo. “Women players too often get unnecessary treatments, including surgery, because they mistakenly receive the same treatments male players get.” The orthopedic surgeon is co-author of the current study, head of the Shoulder Service at Rush Medical College, and a Team Physician for the Chicago White Sox. The study is published in the March issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine.1
Fast-pitch softball has quickly become one of America’s most popular female team sports. About 2.5 million women now play the sport on the high and college level.
In the new study Rush researchers studied the “windmill” motion of women pitchers. Every season about half those pitchers will be sidelined by injuries. That’s because players like Jennie Finch of the Chicago Bandits use that underhand motion to throw softballs 70 miles per hour. The conventional medical wisdom is that motion is “more natural” than a man’s overhead motion.
“We found that wasn’t the case,” says Dr. Romeo. “While overhand pitching puts more stress on the joint itself, we found ‘windmill’ pitching puts a much greater stress on the biceps muscle. Female pitchers often get anterior shoulder pain. Our research suggests the biceps is the main reason why.”
The Rush team performed electromyography (EMG) on seven female ‘windmill’ pitchers as they went through their throwing motion. (An EMG records the electrical potential as muscles contract.) While an overhead throw already puts stress on the biceps tendon, the EMGs showed a “windmill” underhand motion stresses the tendon to an even greater degree.
Researchers believe that further stress is caused by two factors: first the “windmill” motion’s unique 360 degree arc and second, the arm’s sudden deceleration at the end of a pitch. That deceleration puts extreme forces on both ends of the biceps muscle. (Just how extreme? This month Dr. Romeo also reported on a female pitcher whose biceps tendon literally snapped and retracted during a pitch.2)
“About half of all softball players are injured and in pain every year,” says Dr. Romeo. “But unfortunately sports medicine doctors rarely treat the biceps. They treat a woman’s shoulder pain the same way as they do a man’s: with surgery like a SLAP procedure (a labral reattachment) or other treatment. That treatment often doesn’t work because it ignores the biceps entirely.”
“One of our goals now is to spread the word that women’s softball injuries are different than men’s. Physicians, physical therapists, and trainers need a better understanding of how to treat these common injuries.”
Another goal is to prevent those injuries entirely. One key is to avoid fatigue. Unlike baseball, a softball pitcher may pitch up to ten seven inning games in one weekend tournament. Rush researchers believe fatigued biceps muscles compensate by shifting position and making an injury more likely. Dr. Romeo says a “pitch count” system similar to the Little League’s may be necessary to limit the often marathon pitching stretches.
“This sport is skyrocketing,” says Dr. Romeo. “We have to reduce these injuries and, when they do occur, to treat them correctly.”
1 I. Rojas, T. Romeo et al, Biceps Acitivity During Windmill Softball Pitching Amer J Sports Med 2009 37:558. http://ajs.sagepub.com/content/37/3/558.abstract
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