Henry Ford Sports Medicine Offers Baseball Prep Program For Youth

DETROIT (WWJ) - As baseball season begins, parents are urged to get kids their sports evaluations before they take the field.

Henry Ford Health Systems athletic trainer Jake Heikkenen said taking this step could help you keep your kids sports injury-free.

He said shoulder and elbow injuries are especially common in young baseball players because of the repetitive throwing motion.

"Because they're doing too much throwing compared to what their body is able to handle," Heikkenen told WWJ's Dr. Deanna Lites.

To help metro Detroit students avoid being sidelined, Henry Ford Sports Medicine offers a baseball prep program for preteens and up to evaluate batting and throwing techniques and tackle some of the special issues faced by younger baseball players.

"So we can actually have them throw. We can have them then go through...kind of see how they're moving. We can do a movement assessment on them," Heikkenen said.

"One of our other programs we have is Dartfish. It's a computer software program...so that we can actually film them throwing and see if there's something going on with their throwing mechanics that is putting them at risk of getting injured."

Visit this link for more information about Henry Ford Sports Medicine, or CLICK HERE to read more now about baseball injury prevention.