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Sports Medicine Broadcast
A Podcast to Promote and Improve Your Practice as an Athletic Trainer
When an overhead or rotational athlete—such as a baseball pitcher, softball player, volleyball server, or tennis player—suffers a significant upper extremity injury, traditional care often calls for shutdown periods lasting anywhere from six weeks to several months. While restricting arm motion is crucial for surgical or tissue healing, completely shutting down the athlete can lead to lost athleticism, decreased conditioning, and a difficult return-to-play process.
In this episode of the Sports Medicine Broadcast, host Chase Morales is joined by Cathy Nguyen, Xavier Porter, and physical therapist Ryan Collins to dive into strategies for keeping overhead athletes conditioned and engaged while protecting healing shoulder and elbow tissues.
Training Beyond the Injured Arm
Overhead performance relies heavily on total-body coordination, trunk rotation, and lower-body ground reaction forces. When the arm is immobilized or restricted, clinicians have a valuable window to address other components of the kinetic chain:
- Lower Quarter & Ground Forces: Maintaining single-leg strength, lower-body power, and leg drive so the athlete does not lose the foundation of their throwing or hitting mechanics.
- Trunk & Core Rotation: Safe, controlled hip and trunk rotation work keeps the core responsive and strong without placing mechanical stress across the healing arm.
- Cardiovascular Conditioning & Movement: Avoiding long periods of inactivity prevents overall physical decline and eases the physical transition back to sport-specific drills.
Protocols Are Templates, Not Rigid Rules
Standard rehabilitation protocols for procedures such as SLAP repairs, UCL reconstructions, or rotator cuff repairs are designed around histology—how tissue heals over specific timeframes. While respecting these tissue-healing boundaries is mandatory, Collins points out that protocols should serve as adaptable templates rather than rigid, calendar-only directives:
- Avoid Automatic Time-Based Progression: Moving an athlete to the next phase purely because a calendar week has passed can overload tissues that are not yet ready or flexible enough.
- Prevent Monotony & Stagnation: Relying solely on basic wrist curls, passive stretching, or light band work for weeks can lead to boredom and sloppy execution. Challenging athletes safely keeps their buy-in high.
Key Progression Criteria Before High-Velocity Loading
Before introducing plyometrics, medicine ball throws, or return-to-throwing protocols, clinicians should look beyond simple pain ratings:
- Full Mobility & Range of Motion: Ensure full structural motion is established without compensatory mechanics.
- Baseline Controlled Strength: “If you can't do it slow, you definitely can't do it fast”. Validate that slow, controlled movements (e.g., standard push-ups or consistent band resistance) are well-tolerated before attempting explosive tasks.
- Movement Coordination & Quality: Verify that the athlete can properly sequence their core and hips without substitute patterns that increase inflammation or stress nearby joints.
By viewing rehabilitation as an ongoing part of athletic training, sports medicine professionals can ensure that sidelined athletes return to the field fully prepared, strong, and confident.
Speaker Contact Information
- Guest: Ryan Collins, PT, ATC
- Email: Ryan.Collins@memorialhermann.org
Episode Credits
- Host: Chase Morales
- Audio Engineer: Shelby Gaytan
- Equipment Provided By: Russell Sadberry
- Recording Made Possible By: Bob Marley and the Memorial Hermann Rockets Sports Medicine Institute team
YouTube Presentation: https://youtu.be/D4l77KKSfkU
