Pitch counts and overuse in high school softball pitchers: a pilot study encompassing bullpen, warm-up, and game pitches.

Background: Fastpitch softball participation continues to rise, yet there is minimal research into universal pitch count regulations for pitchers. The only current guidelines published by American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) in conjunction with the National Council for Youth Sports (NCYS), are based on pitch counts for youth baseball. The aim of this study was to quantify the total number of pitches thrown by high school fastpitch softball pitchers during a game outing to estimate the true workload experienced by the pitchers. We hypothesized that pitchers exceed the current recommendations.

Methods: Researchers collected total pitch count, quantified as total number of bullpens, warm-up (between inning), and in-game pitches thrown by high school varsity fastpitch softball pitchers during a single game outing.

Results: A total of 8248 pitches were counted during 89 varsity high school fastpitch softball pitcher outings. Of the 77 pitchers that pitched in a live game setting, 25.6% of pitchers pitched above the recommendation; which increased to 51.2% when including bullpen and warm-up pitches. Starters threw significantly more and relievers significantly less than the recommendations (P=0.001).

Conclusions: Though current pitch count recommendations for youth fastpitch softball, were modeled after current guidelines in youth baseball, they are all that exists to help softball pitchers from incurring increased workload. However, our data suggests that many fastpitch softball players pitch above the recommendation, and thus further research is required to determine injury association with pitch counts in fastpitch softball.