It’s springtime again – or nearly there, anyway – and all sports fans know what that means: spring training and the return of Major League Baseball’s players to their winter training grounds. Unfortunately, as players come back to the stadiums, they also return to a heightened risk of back injury. Commonly known as overuse injuries, these lower back injuries can be subtle and usually occur over prolonged periods of time. They are the result of repetitive micro-trauma to the tendons, bones, and joints, typically caused by training errors involving a too-rapid acceleration of the intensity, duration, or frequency of a given activity. Studies show the majority of injuries occur in the beginning of the season due to lack of conditioning in spring training. These injuries decrease steadily each month starting in April and going through September, the first and last months of the season. According to Dr. Douglas Comeau, a sports medicine physician and assistant professor at Boston University School of Medicine, the most common injuries among fielders include hamstring and groin strains, and pitchers tend to strain or tear ligaments in the elbow or rotator cuff. “Major league baseball players might not take spring training seriously, but then need to play a whole game in