Tennis Serve vs Baseball Pitching

Tennis players and baseball players especially pitchers are called "overhead" athletes because of the way they throw the ball and serve. Tommy John surgery in baseball pitchers is one of the most talked about injury in all sports right next to concussion these days. However, we do not hear anything in tennis players. There are a lot of similarities between baseball pitching and tennis serve, and they both suffer similar shoulder injuries. But why don't tennis players suffer Tommy John injury?! Everyone that watches or plays baseball has heard of "pitch count", however, we don't hear about "serve count" Let's take a look at how many pitches a starting pitcher throws in a month. They usually get 5-6 starts a month and they pitch around 100 pitches per start. So that's roughly 500-600 pitches per month discounting bullpen sessions they do between starts. Tennis players' serve count varies depending on how many matches they win in a tournament. After looking at 250 Grand Slam matches from 2014-2016, male tennis players served 140-150 times a match on average. Those players that advanced to the round of 16 played 4 matches in about a week. So that is 560-600 serves in a shorter period of time. A baseball is heavier than a tennis ball. Tennis players use a tennis racket. 

       One thing that stands out to me is that during baseball pitching pitchers shoulder is rotating at around 5-7000 degrees per second. On the other hand, tennis players shoulder are rotating at a lot slower speed (4-5000 degrees per second). The faster you move the shoulder, the more stress you are placing on the shoulder and elbow. Also, tennis players can use a tennis racket to serve harder than baseball pitchers can throw a baseball. 

       There is no study that explains why baseball pitchers suffer more Tommy John injury than tennis players. So we can  only speculate, but shoulder rotation speed may have something to do with it. Also, tennis players seem to suffer more wrist injuries than baseball pitchers. Tommy John injury is more common in athletes such as javelin throwers than tennis players. And studies suggested that softball pitchers suffer similar shoulder injuries to those suffered by baseball pitchers even though softball pitchers pitch underhand.......

Preventing Injuries

An injury is something that many athletes are forced to deal with at any level of play whether it is at junior level, high school level, college level, or professional level. Some injuries are more serious than others. But if you have to deal with pain every time you practice or if you have to miss practices and competitions, it is not fun. In many cases, an injury is caused by multiple factors; some you can control (intrinsic) the others you can't(extrinsic). As long as you want to play sports competitively and achieve your goals in the sport, you should be involved in some form of injury prevention program because it is the first step toward success.
      Everyone talks about "core" these days and does some type of core exercises to become a better athlete. But why is it and how is it important?! "Core" is pelvis and lumbar spine (and sacrum). And muscles that are attached to them are called "core muscles". Some parts of the body are designed to move and the others are not. Pelvis, sacrum, and lumbar spine are those areas that should have minimal movements, which means that you should be able to control their movement and stabilize them, which requires muscles  functions. There is a study done on baseball pitchers to see how the amount of pelvis motion affects their performance (ERA, WHIP, etc). And they found that the pitchers that had 7 degrees or more tilt of pelvis during the measurement pitched worse than those that had less than 7. Another study suggested that tennis players with low back pain had more movement of pelvis in a sagittal plane than those who did not have low back pain. Of course, core stability alone will not prevent injury or enhance performance, however, core stability is a huge factor in those two areas. 
       Any athletes that are involved in competitive sports should implement injury prevention program and core strength/stability/endurance/proprioceptive exercises should be included in it.