What Is Your “Tommy John” Ligament?
You’ve probably heard of a few odd or unusual terms that refer to various medical conditions, body parts, or specific injuries. One of the most common of these terms, particularly heard in sports circles, is used to describe the Ulnar Collateral Ligament (UCL) of the elbow, also known as the “Tommy John Ligament.”
The UCL, or Tommy John ligament, is the main ligament stabilizing the inner part of the elbow. It attaches the end of the arm bone to one of the forearm bones. The UCL is often torn or stretched by activities causing repetitive strain on the ligament – particularly throwing or tennis. Stretching of the ligament can cause subtle instability in the elbow leading to pain with repetitive throwing. Often the ligament needs to be reconstructed with a tendon graft to restore its strength and allow return to pain-free throwing or overhead sports, a procedure that has become common in baseball pitchers.
Where Did The Name Tommy John Come From?
Tommy John was major league baseball pitcher for the L.A. Dodgers and New York Yankees over a twenty-year career and was the first person to undergo the procedure that now carries his name. John began to experience some serious ligament discomfort and pitching problems around 1974. Dr. Frank Jobe, a noted orthopaedic surgeon who was team physician for the L.A. Dodgers at that time diagnosed John with tearing of the UCL as the cause of his pitching problems and devised a new surgical procedure to reconstruct the ligament – a radical and controversial treatment at the time. Back then, it was believed that a major league pitcher could never return to pitching in the big leagues after having surgery. Faced with few options and the prospect of having to retire from baseball, John placed his trust in Dr. Jobe and underwent the procedure. He then went on to return to the major leagues and had a successful Hall of Fame carreer. Based on his success, the procedure became known as the “Tommy John” procedure and is now commonly performed on baseball pitchers with painful elbows.
Misconceptions About the “Tommy John” Procedure
Based on John’s experience and the success of others who have had the procedure over the years there has become a misconception that undergoing the procedure can actually improve pitching performance over that of having a normal elbow. Many players and coaches came to believe that the procedure increased pitching velocity and accuracy and that players were actually “better” after undergoing the procedure. There is no medical or biomechanical evidence to support this. However, most sports medicine and athletic trainers believe that the post-operative rehab and strengthening that players undergo after the surgery is what often times can lead to their improved performance. This has lead to more research and focus on prevent exercises and training regimens to improve performance in throwing and to help prevent the need for a thrower to undergo a “Tommy John” procedure.
Read this: Advair Diskus
Howdy! This post could not be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my good old room mate! He always kept chatting about this. I will forward this article to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read. Many thanks for sharing!|
Inspiring quest there. What occurred after? Good luck!|
Howdy mikelrids! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be ok. I’m absolutely enjoying your blog and look forward to new updates.
Hello there, There’s no doubt that your website might be having internet browser compatibility issues. Whenever I look at your site in Safari, it looks fine however, when opening in I.E., it’s got some overlapping issues. I merely wanted to provide you with a quick heads up! Besides that, great website!|
Hello! Would you mind if I share your blog with my twitter group? There’s a lot of folks that I think would really enjoy your content. Please let me know. Thank you|
Thank you for every other magnificent article. Where else may just anybody get that kind of information in such an ideal means of writing? I have a presentation next week, and I am on the look for such info.
I’ve been browsing on-line more than 3 hours today, yet I never found any fascinating article like yours. It is beautiful value sufficient for me. Personally, if all webmasters and bloggers made just right content as you did, the net will be much more helpful than ever before.
Regards one of my friends,
Wow, amazing weblog format! How lengthy have you ever been running a blog for? you made blogging glance easy. The total look of your site is magnificent, as smartly as the content material!
Sweet blog! I found it while searching on Yahoo News. Do you have any tips on how to get listed in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there! Many thanks|
Please let me know if you’re looking for a article writer for your blog. You have some really great posts and I think I would be a good asset. If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d absolutely love to write some material for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine. Please shoot me an e-mail if interested. Many thanks!|
My programmer is trying to persuade me to move to .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the costs. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using Movable-type on several websites for about a year and am concerned about switching to another platform. I have heard great things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can transfer all my wordpress posts into it? Any help would be greatly appreciated!|
These are in fact enormous ideas in about blogging. You have touched some pleasant points here. Any way keep up wrinting.|
What a information of un-ambiguity and preserveness of valuable familiarity regarding unexpected feelings.|
Remarkable! Its truly remarkable piece of writing, I have got much clear idea regarding from this article.|
I think other website proprietors should take this web site as an model, very clean and magnificent user friendly style and design, let alone the content. You are an expert in this topic!
My brother recommended I might like this blog. He was once totally right. This post truly made my day. You can not consider just how so much time I had spent for this info! Thanks!|
Regards outer world http://www.arystalifescience.com/assets/plugins/cm/buygabapentinonline/ buy Gabapentin cheap.
Good day making friends http://www.she.com/cms/buyprednisone.php risk to become a loser.
you are in point of fact a good webmaster. The web site loading pace is incredible. It seems that you are doing any distinctive trick. Also, The contents are masterwork. you have performed a magnificent activity in this matter!|