Home
>Health>
Youth Sports Medicine
Top Youth Pitching Coach: Parents Are Spending $100s On Lessons, Tournaments, J-Bands, And Arm-Care Tools, But Still Missing This After-Throwing Cream Step
If your son’s pitch count looks safe but he still rubs the same shoulder after lessons, long toss, games, or practice, read this before buying another ice wrap, spray, or sports rub.
I have worked with youth pitchers, shortstops, catchers, third basemen, and utility kids for more than a decade. The biggest arm-care mistake I see is usually not laziness. It is not parents ignoring workload. It is not kids refusing to warm up.
Most families who come to me are already trying. They have J-Bands in the bag. They know the pitch-count rules. They have watched mechanics videos. They ask if their son is flying open, dropping his elbow, rushing down the mound, or over-throwing across the diamond. They have ice at home. They have tried Biofreeze, Icy Hot, Tiger Balm, Deep Blue, KT Tape, magnesium sprays, or whatever another parent swore by after a tournament.
And still, I see the same thing after lessons.
The kid finishes throwing, grabs his bag, and rubs the same spot on his throwing shoulder.
The parent sees it too. They usually ask me, “Do you think it is his mechanics?”
Sometimes mechanics matter. Sometimes workload matters. Sometimes a doctor or PT needs to be involved. But a lot of the time, the first thing I notice is simpler.
The routine covers the start of throwing. It does not cover the end.
What I See At Every Lesson
At the start of a lesson, parents are prepared. The kid gets out of the car, clips the bands to the fence, does arm circles, starts light, works into catch, and then we build into the actual throwing. That part has become normal in youth baseball. Parents know the arm needs to get ready before it throws.
Then the lesson ends.
The radar gun goes away. The bucket gets picked up. The kid takes off his cleats. The parent asks how many pitches he threw. I tell them. They relax because the number does not look crazy.
But that number is not the whole throwing day.
Before the first real pitch, he threw warmups. Between drills, he threw resets. After the mound work, he played catch with his dad for a minute because he wanted to try one more grip. Then later that night he might throw into a rebounder, play catch in the yard, or go to team practice after a private lesson.
The pitch count only catches the clean, official part.
His shoulder catches everything else.
That is why I do not only watch the delivery. I watch what happens after the ball leaves his hand, after the drill is over, and after the parent thinks the throwing part is done.
The Count Misses The Messy Throws
Parents think of workload like a number. Coaches think of workload like a day.
A kid might throw 28 pitches in a lesson, but the shoulder does not experience only 28 events. It experiences the warmup throws, the long toss throws, the dry reps that turn into real throws, the flat-ground work, the fielding throws, the casual “show me that again” throws, and the extra balls he fires across the infield because he wants to prove he has an arm.
That is why the sentence “he barely pitched” can be true and incomplete at the same time.
A shortstop may not pitch at all and still have a heavy shoulder day. A catcher may throw more total balls than anyone on the field. A third baseman may make fewer throws, but each one is hard. A tournament utility kid may move all over the field and never have one clean number that explains the work.
The scorebook counts pitches. The shoulder counts throws.
And every throw has a finish. After release, the shoulder and upper arm have to slow the arm down. That braking part happens whether the throw came from a mound, a shortstop hole, a catcher’s crouch, or a casual warmup lane.
If your routine does not have a step after that, there is a gap.
The Warmup Is Not The Finish
I like J-Bands. I would rather see a kid use bands before throwing than walk straight from the car to the mound. I like progressive throwing. I like clean catch play. I like mechanics work that teaches the body to move better instead of just throwing harder.
But I also tell parents this all the time:
A warmup is not a wind-down.
J-Bands help prepare the arm before throwing. They do not suddenly become after-throwing recovery just because the kid did them earlier. Mechanics help make throwing cleaner. They do not erase the fact that the shoulder still has to brake the arm after release. Pitch counts help manage mound volume. They do not count every throw a kid makes on a real baseball day.
That is where parents get fooled. They look at a responsible warmup and assume the arm-care routine is complete. Then the kid gets home, rubs his shoulder, and the parent starts guessing again.
Should we ice it? Should we stretch more? Was it too many pitches? Was it mechanics? Was it long toss? Was it because he played shortstop after pitching?
Those questions happen because the after-step was never clearly built.
The routine had a beginning.
It did not have an ending.
The After-Step Has To Be Realistic
Baseball families do not need a perfect routine. They need one that survives a normal Tuesday night.
That means the after-step cannot require a speech. It cannot require a kid to sit still with an ice wrap every time he throws. It cannot depend on a parent remembering seven different exercises after a two-hour practice. It cannot burn so much that the kid hates it. It cannot dry so fast that it feels like nothing happened.
This is why I stopped telling parents to simply “take recovery seriously.” They already take it seriously. The problem is that most recovery advice is too complicated for the moment when it actually needs to happen.
After throwing, most kids are tired, dirty, hungry, and done listening. That is the real test.
Will the step still happen then?
That is where LeStrova Magnesium Relief Cream makes sense. It is not another warmup tool. It is not another pitch-count system. It is not another menthol sports rub trying to win with a stronger skin sensation.
It is a topical magnesium cream used after baseball on the throwing shoulder and upper arm for normal post-throwing soreness and tightness.
The formula uses Dead Sea magnesium chloride, with 250mg magnesium chloride per teaspoon. The cream base matters because it gives the parent or athlete time to rub it into the shoulder and upper arm instead of watching a spray disappear before it feels like part of the routine.
The format matters too: cream, not spray. No harsh menthol burn. Built for after throwing.
That is why kids actually use it. Bag down. Shower or wipe down. LeStrova on the throwing shoulder and upper arm. Food, water, sleep.
No ice fight. No recovery lecture. No guessing which product on the counter is supposed to do what.
What Parents Notice First
The first change parents tell me about is usually not dramatic. It is not some big emotional moment where everything suddenly looks different.
It is simpler.
Their kid stops fighting the after-step.
The jar stays near the baseball bag instead of disappearing into the bathroom drawer. The parent stops having to explain soreness every night. The kid stops treating recovery like punishment. The step becomes part of baseball instead of another argument after baseball.
That is the part I care about as a coach. I can give a kid the cleanest mechanics plan in the world, but if the routine falls apart the second practice ends, the family is still guessing.
A good routine has to fit the way baseball actually works.
That is what most parents are really buying.
Not another complicated routine.
A step that finally gets repeated.
What I Would Never Tell A Parent
I want to be very clear about this because I work with kids who love baseball and parents who want to do the right thing.
LeStrova is not a treatment for Little League Shoulder. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent an injury. It does not replace doctors, PT, rest, pitch counts, mechanics work, or a parent stopping a kid when something looks wrong.
It is also not a pain test.
Do not use it before throwing to see if a kid can play. Do not use it to cover up a warning sign. If pain is sharp, worsening, unusual, persistent, changing the way he throws, or keeps coming back, that is the stop-and-get-checked category.
LeStrova belongs after baseball is over, for normal soreness and tightness, when the shoulder and upper arm have already done the work.
That timing is the point.
After throwing is not pushing through. It is finishing the routine.
Most parents already built the front half. They warm the arm up, count the pitches, ask the coach, watch mechanics, and react when something feels serious.
What many families still do not have is the ordinary after-throwing step.
The Buy 2, Get 1 Free offer makes sense because baseball does not happen in one place. Keep one jar at home, one in the baseball bag, and one ready for tournament weekends.
Every order comes with a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee. Either it becomes the after-throwing step your routine was missing, or you get your money back.
You already built the warmup.
Now build the wind-down.
With respect for what you are managing,
Dr. Ryan Miller
Sports-Medicine Physical Therapist, Youth Throwing Athlete Specialist
P.S. — The 30-day guarantee means you risk nothing. Use it after real practices, games, long toss, shortstop, catching, and tournament weekends. If it does not fill the fourth bucket your arm-care routine was missing, send it back and get your money back. And if you are skeptical that a topical cream can do anything meaningful for a throwing shoulder — I understand that. I had the same skepticism before I understood what category it was serving. The guarantee means the skepticism costs nothing to test.
