Avalilação PREreview de Utility of a new lower limb and trunk functional evaluation for pitchers with focus on the physical characteristics of players with a throwing disorder

Short Summary of Main Findings In this 2023 medRxiv preprint, researchers developed and tested a simple Throwing Rotational Assessment (TRA) to evaluate lower limb and trunk rotation in 164 male high school baseball pitchers. Compared to the healthy group (n=103), pitchers with throwing disorders (n=61; shoulder n=26, elbow n=35) showed significantly reduced pelvic and trunk rotation angles in both throwing and opposite directions (p<0.01 for most comparisons). Healthy pitchers exhibited direction-specific rotation (greater in throwing direction), while the disorder group did not. ROC analysis suggested moderate discriminatory ability (pelvic cutoff ~34.5°, AUC 0.69; trunk cutoff 81°, AUC 0.67). The TRA demonstrated high reliability (ICC 0.82–0.94).

How This Work Has Moved the Field Forward It introduces a quick, reproducible, low-tech clinical tool (TRA) that assesses whole-body rotational coordination during a simulated pitching stance—addressing the often-overlooked role of lower limb/trunk mobility in overhead throwing injuries. By linking reduced rotational capacity to shoulder/elbow disorders, it supports screening for injury risk in youth pitchers and provides a practical method for early detection in sports medicine and field settings.

Major Issues

• Still an unreviewed preprint (no peer-reviewed journal version identified).

• Cross-sectional design with no causation or longitudinal data; unclear if reduced rotation precedes or results from injury.

• Moderate discriminatory power (AUC ~0.67–0.69) and relatively low specificity limit standalone diagnostic use.

• Pilot nature with potential selection bias from camp-based sampling; no kinetic/dynamic analysis or correlation with actual pitching mechanics.

Minor Issues

• Limited reporting of effect sizes beyond p-values and group means.

• Subgroup analysis (shoulder vs. elbow) shows some inconsistencies in significance.

• No discussion of potential training interventions to improve TRA scores or prevent disorders.

Competing interests

The author declares that they have no competing interests.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The author declares that they did not use generative AI to come up with new ideas for their review.