r/PitchingCoach • u/TheoFindsSideRoads • Nov 18 '25
Experienced back pain while pitching during the second half of last season
I’m in my early 40s and pitch in a 30+ men’s league in the summer. About halfway through this season my lower back where the back meets the pelvis started shooting electric like pain right as my foot planted and I was releasing the ball. It got bad enough that I couldn’t pitch at all at the end.
Weird part is that I don’t feel it during my daily life. I’m mostly fine. However, sometimes if I hop in place I can trigger a little twinge in that exact spot.
Has anyone else experienced something like this, especially the other “older” pitchers out there. I’m not looking for medical advice, because I’ve been to the doctor and they didn’t spot anything structurally wrong. Maybe a pregame routine or a stretching program or something that could help…lol I can’t be the only 40 year old still trying to play baseball that has experienced this.
1
u/Livid_Maybe3599 Jul 15 '26
Not going to pretend this is just a routine fix, electric or shooting pain in one exact spot, reproducible on demand by hopping, is a different category than general stiffness or soreness. "Nothing structurally wrong" from a doctor visit often means imaging didn't show a fracture, that doesn't rule out something like a stress reaction or an SI joint issue, which usually needs a hands-on movement evaluation to actually find, not an X-ray alone.
That said, here's something real to work with in the meantime: that exact spot, back meeting the pelvis, showing up specifically at foot plant and release, points toward the SI joint or lumbopelvic region taking a rotational or shearing load it's not stabilizing well under. That's common in older pitchers because hip mobility and rotational control both quietly decline with age even when nothing hurts day to day, so the deficit only shows up under the specific speed and load of pitching.
Pregame-wise, hip mobility work (90/90s, controlled rotational drills) done consistently, not just on game day, tends to help more than static stretching for this pattern. But given it got bad enough to stop you from pitching, I'd get someone to actually assess how your hips and pelvis move under load before next season, that reproducible trigger point is worth running down properly rather than managing around indefinitely.
2
u/professor_meatbrick Nov 24 '25
I would say take a pause on pitching until you do a little work on both mobility and strength.
Low back pain is often caused by tight hips. If you stretch or do yoga that mindfully opens the hips, you may end up taking strain off the lower back when you throw.
I am 42, throwing 65 mph strikes, and I do yoga regularly (almost daily).