"These kids are playing a million baseball games or basketball games, they're lifting year-round, and their muscles get fatigued. When your muscles get fatigued --- and it's your muscles that are kind of your protectors to whatever joint it is --- that makes your joints more likely to become injured."

Snyder continued.

"These kids, too many of them, just don't take any time off," he said. "If you look at elite athletes, the guys who are getting paid for this, their trainers schedule blocks of time off, just so their muscles can recoup. You can't go 24-7, 365, your body can't take that, you'll actually go downward.

"Studies have shown that if you take a month off and then start training again, you'll actually have greater jumps in your performance because you've given you body a chance to recoup."

What you do at age 12 can have an impact when you're 17 or 18.

"There's absolutely a cumulative effect," Snyder said. "The incidents of Tommy John surgery, in 14-16 year-old males, has gone up 28 percent in the last five years. It's because a lot of these kids are getting pushed, thinking the more you play, the better you get.

"That's not necessarily true ... you've got to give your body breaks. In studies, most of these injuries are driven by overuse. Some parents are nuts, they push and push and push their kids, like throwing 120 pitches in a baseball game to win a little trophy."

This is not the case with the Porters, Snyder insists.

"I want to be really clear on this, I'm not talking about the Porters' parents because they get it, they're great people," he said. "They haven't pushed these kids, they played because they love the game.

"In the case of the Porters, it's pure genetics."

GENETICS ... AND BAD LUCK

"Genetics play a real factor in injuries like the strength of your ligaments, the laxity in your ligaments, and your body-mass index. Some people just have weaker ligaments, some people have weaker backs, it's the way they're built."

Porter Jr. and his herniated disc is a prime example. He's jumped tens of thousands of times in his life, but that's not the problem --- it's when he lands.

But ...

"It's not just the impacts, it's all the hyper-extension (when your back goes backwards) he does that puts a load on your disc space," Snyder said. "That can lead not only to a herniated disc, but stress fractures.

"Having said that, it's almost unheard of for an 18 year-old to have this, like 1 in 10,000."

There's another good example of the genetics at work, right here in Jefferson City.

"Look and Mike and Kirk Farmer, both of them hurt, constantly," Snyder said. "I wasn't here went Mike was here (in the 1960s), but Kirk Farmer (1990s) is built like a Greek Adonis and he couldn't make it through a season.

"He got hurt his junior year with the Jays, he got hurt every year he was at Mizzou --- broke his leg, broke his hand, broke his collarbone. It was every, stinkin' year. If you looked at him, he was the last person you'd think would get hurt.

"Some people, genetically, are just not as strong in their bones or ligaments. And there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.

"And honestly, with the Porters, I think there's also been a lot of bad luck."

The Porter injuries: Dr. Snyder
says several factors go into it

Missouri sophomore Jontay Porter's injury is the fourth in the family the last two years.

Loeffler's Link