Lumbopelvic control and days missed because of injury in professional baseball pitchers

Background: Recently, lumbopelvic control has been linked to pitching performance, kinematics, and loading; however, poor lumbopelvic control has not been prospectively investigated as a risk factor for injuries in baseball pitchers.

Hypothesis: Pitchers with poor lumbopelvic control during spring training are more likely to miss ≥30 days because of an injury through an entire baseball season than pitchers with good lumbopelvic control.

Study design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2.

Methods: A total of 347 professional baseball pitchers were enrolled into the study during the last 2 weeks of spring training and stayed with the same team for the entire season. Lumbopelvic control was quantified by peak anterior-posterior deviation of the pelvis relative to the starting position during a single-leg raise test (APScore). Days missed because of an injury through the entire season were recorded by each team's medical staff.

Results: A higher APScore was significantly associated with a higher likelihood of missing ≥30 days (P = .023, χ(2) test). When divided into tertiles based on their APScore, participants in the highest tertile were 3.0 times and 2.2 times more likely to miss at least 30 days throughout the course of a baseball season relative to those in the lowest or middle tertiles, respectively. A higher APScore was also significantly associated with missing more days because of an injury within participants who missed at least 1 day (P = .018, ANOVA), with participants in the highest tertile missing significantly more days (mean, 98.6 days) than those in the middle tertile (mean, 45.8 days; P = .017) or lowest tertile (mean, 43.8 days; P = .017).

Conclusion: This study found that poor lumbopelvic control in professional pitchers was associated with an increased risk of missing significant time because of an injury.