Physical Development and Workload Considerations for Youth and Adolescent Baseball Athletes

The present review aims to assess special considerations in physical development and workload across skeletally immature throwing athletes to identify opportunities to optimize health and performance for young baseball players.

Young athletes are at increased risk of injury during periods of peak height velocity, which may be further confounded by higher training loads, and patterns of sport specialization that can occur during a window of rapid development of strength, power, and throwing velocity. Emerging technologies to monitor internal and external loads may provide future insight into the relationship of both chronic, and acute-to-chronic workload and associations with performance and injury risk across developing baseball athletes.

Injuries to young baseball athletes continue to rise despite established guidelines. As such, special considerations should be made regarding physical development and workload in the adolescent throwing athlete to mitigate injury risk and support long-term athlete development.