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I have a friend who was here for the holidays and she is entering her residency in sports medicine. As part of her course study she traveled to every region of the US and observed and collected data on softball injuries at some of the best D1 schools. She shared that with me a small time pitching coach and lawyer. The highest percentage of injuries were to legs not arms. And the new age common practice to reduce those injuries is to stop the long distance running on non track surfaces.Some have dropped it all together. Most now train on indoor tracks or basketball courts. Gone are the days of running on concrete and asphalt.Think of the number of young ladies you have heard of with knee joint surgeries ,ankle surgeries and hip joint problems.They are still great players but for how long if they abuse those joints by beating them to death on hard surfaces to gain a small cardio improvement.Especially with all the research that shows bike riding, incline training gives you far more improvement in cardio numbers. We train these young ladies using techniques that were outlawed in wrestling programs. No longer can you have unsafe levels of body fat and hydration. Schools were forced to buy instruments to check for abuse and monitor that before meets. Yet, we assume to be a good softball player you must cut the body fat and all look like a twig. Amazing how some coaches judge a good athlete! What they are training is a future medical patient.