DEAR DR. DONOHUE: My 12-year-old boy is a baseball phenomenon. I’m serious. I’m not bragging. I don’t know where he got his talent, but it wasn’t from me. My wife says she never threw a ball in her life. The kid is a mutant. At any rate, he’s the star pitcher for his baseball team. I wonder about overdoing things for a child of this age. Is there any guide that puts limits on a 12-year-old’s throwing? – E.S.

ANSWER: There is a guide. You can get it on the Internet by going to the site sponsored by the Little League. It’s www.littleleague.org. Even if your son’s team isn’t a Little League-affiliated team, his team and all children’s baseball teams should follow the example set by the Little League organization and limit the number of pitches thrown by children. This guide gives the number for different age groups. It also gives the days of rest that must be taken before a pitcher pitches another game.

A 12-year-old’s arm is not solidly bone. Immature bones have growth plates, areas of cartilage that allow the bones to elongate. Damage to the growth plate can stunt a bone’s growth. Overuse damages growth plates.

Other pitching injuries come to tendons, ligaments and joints. They all can be permanently damaged if a child abuses the arm by overuse.

Throwing a curveball or other breaking balls should not be permitted until a youngster is 14 or 15. Breaking balls put way too much stress on immature arms. A youngster can learn the technique of throwing these pitches, but he shouldn’t throw them during a game or throw them more than a few times in practices.

Orthopedic surgeons are seeing arm injuries in baseball-playing children that they haven’t seen in years past. Parents need to take a cue from your example. You might not have been a baseball star, but you’re excelling as a parent.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I’ve taken up tennis late in life. I’m a 45-year-old woman. My greatest liability is a weak wrist. I can’t maintain a solid grip on the racquet for a whole set. How can I strengthen my grip? – H.R.

ANSWER: Grab a tennis ball. Squeeze it hard, and hold the squeeze for five seconds. Let up for a brief break, and repeat the squeeze 10 times with 10 breaks. Switch to the other hand, the one you don’t use to hold the racquet. You want to have symmetrical muscle growth in both arms.

Once you get the hang of things, increase the number of squeezes and the number of times you perform the exercise each day.

If a tennis ball is too hard to squeeze, get the same size of a rubber ball, one not too hard, but not too soft either.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: Can a sit-up hurt your neck? You might find this hard to believe, but ever since I have started doing sit-ups my neck has hurt. I blame it on the exercise. Is that possible? I frankly don’t see how sit-ups are related to the neck. – J.W.

ANSWER: It’s possible if you’re holding your hands behind your neck during the sit-up and bending your head to touch your knees in the final motion of the sit-up.

See what happens if you make a few changes. Keep your arms at your sides. Bend your knees to 90 degrees. Keep your head and neck straight during the entire movement. Don’t try to touch your forehead to your knees.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I am 54 and in good shape. How can I add speed to my golf swing? – M.S.

ANSWER: Take a leaf from the book of some baseball coaches who have their players practice with different weights of bats, both lighter and heavier than the regulation bat.

Doing so is supposed to increase the speed of a bat swing.

You don’t have to buy a new set of clubs. You can add weight to the ones you have. For lighter clubs, use anything that has the rough shape of a golf club. It’s the motion that counts.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I read your article on urge incontinence due to an overactive bladder. Unfortunately, I have the other kind – stress incontinence. Would you address that for me and recommend some remedies? – E.S.

ANSWER: Incontinence is the accidental loss of urine. Urge incontinence comes about from sudden contractions of the bladder’s muscular wall when it shouldn’t contract. Stress incontinence is a loss of urine control due to a cough, sneeze, a hearty laugh or straining to lift or push anything heavy. These “stresses” increase pressure in the abdomen, which, in turn, exerts force on the bladder, and urine leaks. Pelvic and bladder outlet muscles and ligaments have lost the strength needed to keep urine in the bladder. Age and childbearing have taken their toll.

Kegel exercises, named for the doctor who first described them, can strengthen the bladder’s muscle and ligament supports. While urinating, deliberately stop the flow. That action shows you the muscles you need to contract to perform Kegel exercises. Three or four times a day, when not urinating, contract those muscles 10 to 20 times consecutively, holding each contraction for 10 seconds. Don’t expect overnight results. It takes two or three months to see improvement.

If the pelvic muscles and ligaments are so lax that the uterus and bladder have dropped down, then surgery could be the answer. When the surgeon performs an additional operative step called a Burch colposuspension, the chances of regaining bladder control are good.

Injection of collagen around the bladder outlet is another way to achieve bladder closure.

Cymbalta, an antidepressant medicine, gives some women greater bladder control.

Bladder training can be effective. Time the interval between bathroom trips. Every week increase the interval by 30 minutes – four minutes each day. If that’s too much of a time increase, go more slowly. The goal is to decrease the need to empty the bladder to every three or four hours.

Although E.S. is a woman, stress incontinence also occurs in men.

Dr. Donohue regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but he will incorporate them in his column whenever possible. Readers may write him or request an order form of available health newsletters at P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475. Readers may also order health newsletters from www.rbmamall.com