Bergen Record reports on how major and minor league baseball players can stay in shape and prevent injuries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to HSS primary sports medicine physician, Kathryn D. McElheny, MD, maintaining overall strength is important for baseball players of all levels while at home. “So much of what you end up needing to do to maintain pitching endurance and prevent injuries to really work on the muscles that surround your shoulder blades, your scapula stabilizer muscles,” explained Dr. McElheny. “A lot of those exercises can be done with a single medicine ball, some light weights, even doing your resistance band work or body blades. There are a lot of inexpensive pieces of equipment that you can have at home that really help you to optimize your muscular endurance.”

As baseball’s injury trend can be attributed to kids playing year-round from a young age, most injuries are chronic overuse injuries. This break in action may actually result in an overall decrease in injuries for younger players. “In some ways, this could almost be more of a blessing in disguise,” said Dr. McElheny. “I think that the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a lot of the studies that have looked at youth throwing injuries emphasized the need to take three to four months off of baseball in a calendar year. And I think part of the issue at the youth level is that we've got kids playing for multiple teams, playing multiple positions, and really playing year-round baseball.”

Read the full article at NorthJersey.com.