We are hearing more and more cases of tendonitis developing in our youth pitchers. The usual recommendations or treatments for recovery are Ice, rest and a lot of Ibuprofen. How does all this relate to the recovery process on the throwing arm? Well, we all know that there is definitely an overuse of the arms of young pitchers. Some pitchers today play for three different leagues or teams. They can play for a Super League team, the City League, and a Fall League team. Regardless of whether each league counts pitches, many pitchers start two or three games a week on the mound. That’s ridiculous! There is no recovery time for your arm and less time to prepare for your next outing.
How do we deal with or prevent tendonitis? Diet plays an important role in the inflammatory process; the food you eat can stimulate inflammation and fuel it like gas on fire. Inflammation is the breakdown of old cells and the replacement of new cells. The diet you are following may further stimulate a chronic type of inflammatory response. As a pitcher, you need to make sure you follow an anti-inflammatory diet rich in essential fats.
Ice and rest have value, but there are many parents who give their children too much ibuprofen. Much of our diet is deficient in EFA essential fatty acids. Many authors at the moment are writing about how the body is dealing with the inflammatory diet and they say that it is causing a prolonged effect on inflammation. In fact, there are necessary fats that we need in our diet. For the past 30 years, the typical American diet has been an anti-fat, fat-limited, or fat-free diet. Essential fats are Omega 3s that prevent inflammation. DHA is good for the liver and brain. EPA is good for the joints. They slow down the inflammatory response.
When you throw a baseball, you are constantly using ligaments, tendons, and joints. Choose Omega 3s that are rich in these essential fatty acids and not really dependent on all the ibuprofen. There is a lot of late research being done on the effects of ibuprofen suggesting that it may actually slow down the healing process of tendonitis. The other danger of ibuprofen is that it can play with pain and continue to damage the surrounding tendons and ligaments in your throwing arm.
