The Outlook is Oblique

(In honor of the first oblique victim of the 2007 season, Bobby Abreu of the Yankees, I thought it would be a good time to reprint this column, which originally appeared at TheBaseballReport.com on August 13, 2006.)

Who among us hasn't consulted with the Tyco Magic-8 Ball, at one crucial moment or another, to look into the future and attempt to discern the answer to one of life's many pressing questions?Like, whether I passed that calculus test I nary cracked a book in preparation for? Or, whether Mary Sue McClintock might fancy a night on the town?

Yes, we've all been there. Haven't we?

One wonders why Tyco (or is it Mattel?) would do such a thing. but if the good folks at Tyco decided to create a baseball-specific version of the Magic-8 Ball, one of the fortunes would almost certainly read: The Outlook is Oblique.

If you have a favorite Major League Baseball team, you've probably had a player on said team go down with an oblique muscle issue this season at some point. Albert Pujols, Jeff Kent, Mike Cameron, Chipper Jones, Rich Harden, Johnny Damon, Casey Blake and Mark Prior are among the most high profile players, but just a few of many others, to forfeit games in 2006 to the dreaded oblique injury.

Am I the only one spending some considerable time contemplating just what in hell this oblique plague is all about?

I had a suspicion, as I prepared to write this piece, that semantics might be at the center of the oblique mystery, and it turns out I was both right and wrong in this regard. My theory was that an oblique injury is a rib muscle strain by another name, and that rib muscle strains were probably occurring with as much frequency as oblique injuries are now, back when they were called rib muscle strains. Follow?

In order to get to the bottom of this morass of confusion, without the benefit of a Magic-8 Ball, I consulted with Bob Sikes, the former assistant athletic trainer for the championship 1986 New York Mets, and the author of a great biog called Getting Paid To Watch. Coach Sikes e-mailed me with the following observation: "In past years an oblique strain or pull would be referred to simply as an abdominal strain or a 'rib cage injury.'" Ahah, there's the semantics at play - the term "oblique" is a relatively new way to characterize an old injury. But, was the injury, whatever you want to call it, as prevalent back in the day as it is now? Coach Sikes has the answer for that question as well: "[a]nd they didn't happen often, and when they did it seemed to be mostly pitchers."

Okay, now we're talking. In the opinion of the Coach, a guy who actually toiled in the trenches and was intimate with player injuries, the oblique muscle strain epidemic is a relatively new trend. Which, of course, begs the next question: why is this happening?

So many questions, so little time. And still no Magic-8 Ball.

Before we get to that, though, for the benefit of those of you who spent your college years reading Shakespeare rather than anatomy texts, I suppose a bit of technical mumbo jumbo is in order. I know, I know, its boring. I promise I won't make it any longer than it has to be.

According to About.com, specifically a section on orthopedics written by Dr. Jonathan Cluett, the oblique muscles are part of the abdominal muscle family, and wrap around the sides of the body. The obliques stretch from the rib cage to the hip on each side of the abdomen. As for how one heals an injury to these muscles, Dr. Cluett writes: "[t]reatment of abdominal muscle injuries is difficult - there is no way to splint the abdomen and it is nearly impossible to fully rest these muscles."

Dr. Cluett raises the other vexing issue when it comes to oblique strains: the length of time it takes for this type of injury to heal. A's pitcher Rich Harden was on the DL from May 14th to June 20th with a strained left oblique last season, Tribe pitcher C.C. Sabathia missed a month earlier this year. Cardinals first bagger Albert Pujols got off easy in June when he spent just 18 days on the DL with a right oblique strain - ­generally an oblique injury will sideline a player for a minimum of two weeks, with three to four weeks most likely.

As for why this injury is happening so often, I consulted with the experts and I think the answer is really pretty simple: misguided conditioning. Charles Euchner is the author of a great book called The Last Nine Innings, published by Sourcebooks Inc. earlier this year, and therein he devotes a few pages to the conditioning regimen of then-Diamondbacks outfielder Steve Finley, currently employed by the Giants. Mr. Finley, as you may know, is 41, truly an old man in the baseball world, and although he isn't having a terrific season, he's still very productive even now.

Euchner takes some time to focus on Finley's conditioning because his system is so different from the conditioning done by most big leaguers. Finley stresses the development of more muscles, particularly along the spine, which, when made strong through rather unorthodox training methods, can better support the larger muscles, thus providing more flexibility and allowing for greater balance in the body. This kind of conditioning is not designed to build large muscles, it is designed to create a more balanced frame, thus minimizing the chances for injury.

Mr. Euchner also points out several other interesting facts. First, he cites a study by The American Journal of Sports Medicine which found that there was a 60% increase in days lost to injury among big league ballplayers from 1989­2001. He also notes the following: "Until the 1980's, the average big league slugger stood around six feet tall and weighed about 185 pounds. Today sluggers are three or four inches taller and weigh forty or fifty more pounds." And, he makes this observation: "Heavier muscles performing more put strain on the tendons and ligaments holding the muscles and the rest of the body together. And the hands, wrists, rib cages and lower backs all suffer with the extra torque powered by the bulging muscles."

Euchner seems to imply that steroids are a leading cause of the larger muscles, and thus the proliferation of injury, and it would be hard to argue, at this point, that steroids haven't at least played a role. However, while steroids have likely been used by a minority of Major Leaguers, every single player is on a year-round conditioning program, and most of them abide by training schedules that focus on building large muscles, rather than flexible muscles on a balanced frame like our Mr. Finley. Thus, it seems most probable that faulty conditioning is the primary culprit in causing so many oblique, and other muscular, injuries among baseball players at the highest level.

Coach Sikes seems to agree, writing to me that in his opinion modern strength training may be creating thicker muscles through the trunk, but that these muscles are perhaps less flexible, and thus players may be "more prone to injury now in this region."

However you choose to look at it, you can't argue with one fact: a heck of a lot of ballplayers are losing enormous amounts of time between the lines to oblique muscle injuries. If this isn't an urgent issue for players, coaches and the league alike, clearly it should be.

You don't need a Magic-8 Ball to figure that out.