This AAA LHP has been down 2-4 mph of velo and recently struggling with control, an uncommon issue for him. After a quick assessment, the issue was clearly neurological/stability related.

Instead of hammering mobility drills, I gave him the following “workout”, which for many of my clients will look like similar to our warm-up.

Movement series
(All done for 10-yards)
A1) alternating walking lunges with overhead reach 3x
A2) reverse bear crawls 3x
B1) alternating walking lunges with rotation over front leg 2x
B2) reverse bear crawls 2x

Sample warm-up: http://joshheenan.com/free-baseball-content/

That’s it. No fancy mobilizations, no stretching, just reinforcing good patterns. He initially struggled with the bear crawls and mentioned that it was almost harder cardiovascular than it was strength wise. After a few sets you could see his form and movement become more fluid.

Remember how I said he was limited neurologically?

If you lose movement capacity, the brain senses stress, it can increase your heart rate and increase cortisol production, which can be a big factor in decreasing testosterone while increasing cortisol (lose muscle gain fat).

This athlete also mentioned how he gained about 20 lbs of “not good weight” and when reviewing videos without his shirt on stated “wow I got fat”. How many overweight people do you know that have tremendous mobility and work capacity?

Likely very few.

Pro athletes, especially minor leaguers, are often undernourished, highly caffeinated, have suboptimal training routines omitting movement needs & enough volume, have terrible sleep patterns, barely enough money to survive, on top of fighting everyday to hold onto their position.

Stress is crippling, luckily for this guy it’s nothing a few bear crawls can’t fix.