Baseball Mobility:
I am going to come out and say it. Baseball is terrible for your body. It is very repetitive and nearly one sided, which creates muscle imbalances in the body. Think about how many repetitions of throws and swings we take over the course of a season. Every single rep we take is just consistently working muscles on the same side over and over again and not working the other antagonistic side. Over time, our body adapts to the demands placed on it and will make changes to allow you to throw or rotate. These changes can have some long lasting effects that could possibly lead to overuse injury.
Our body consists of many joints that allow us to move. Some joints should be stable and some should be mobile, check out the list below to see where we should be stable and where we should be mobile.
Ideally, we would like our food, knee, lumbar (low back), scapula (shoulder blade), and elbow all to be stable. On the reverse side of that our ankle, hips, thoracic spine (mid back), neck, shoulder, and wrist should be mobile.
Here are 6 mobility exercises that can help keep you mobile and healthy throughout the season:
*It is important to implement these with a strength training program to help tackle some of the muscle imbalances that come with playing baseball.
1.) T-Spine Rotations
Our spine is segmented into four different areas that all have different functions and anatomical structures. The Cervical which are the vertebrae in our neck, thoracic which is our upper back, lumbar is our lower back, and sacrum/coccyx which is considered our tailbone.
The Thoracic or often referred to as t-spine is the most mobile vertebrae in our spine. It is important to work on t-spine mobility to make sure it does not get tight and lock up causing our lumbar spine (which should be stable) to try to make up for lost movement in the t-spine.
2.) 90-90 Hip
The hip joint is a true ball and socket joint. This allows for optimal movement of the head of the femur to move freely inside the socket of the hip joint. When the muscles surrounding the hip joint get tight we can lose range of motion in our hips.
3.) Shoulder Dislocates and Around the Worlds
Our shoulder joint is not a true ball in socket joint. The head of the Humerus sits near the Glenoid Fossa on our Scapula, which is very flat and does not encompass the head of the humerus like ball and socket joint in our hip. This is to allow for more mobility, notice how you can bend your shoulder in a greater range of motion than your hip.
Throughout the baseball season you will develop some tightness in the surrounding muscles of the shoulder joint. Here are two great exercises to free up shoulder range of motion. Use a PVC pipe, dowell rod, or a broomstick and give these two shoulder mobility exercises a try. These are great for freeing up the shoulder joint to allow for better mobility.
4.) Free Hangs
Free hangs are another great shoulder mobility exercise to allow your body get better shoulder overhead flexion. This will mainly stretch the Latissimus Dorsi muscle which can get tight from throwing. Find a pull up bar or something to hang from, keeping your core engaged and active, pelvis tucked under, try not to rock back and forth. Hold for as long as you can.
6.) Calf Stretches
Our calf complex is one that is often overlooked but has just as an importance for baseball players as say the shoulder joint. Have you ever noticed a person in the gym squatting and their heels come up off the ground? The reason is mostly because of tight calves. Dorsiflexion is the motion of moving your toes towards your shins and having optimal dorsiflexion can allow us to have proper squat and hip hinging form. Very important for hitting, pitching, and fielding.
The yoga pose downward dog, is a great stretch for the calves.
Try implementing these into your daily routine, before and after practice, game, the gym, or just when you wake up in the morning.
After my playing days, I decided I wanted to focus on my academics and learn about the human body, get experience coaching, and eventually help other athletes reach their goals. I have my Bachelors of Science in Health and Exercise Science; i’m also a Certified Personal Trainer, Corrective Exercise Specialist, and have worked in a Sports Science Role in Professional Baseball.