Most baseball players who seek out therapy do so because they are in pain and chiropractic care does help the majority of those patients. However, what if I told you that seeing a qualified therapist would actually increase your performance on the field? Players are often working on their swing to increase their batting average, lifting weights to increase their power, working on their pitching mechanics to decrease their ERA, and fielding ground balls to improve their defense. All of these practice strategies will help baseball players improve, but there is something missing in this equation that can make or break the athlete and that is PROPER MOVEMENT PATTERNS. This blog will go through how these movement patterns are essential to allowing the athlete not only to train better, but also to express his athletic potential to the fullest on the baseball field.
First, let’s break down what movement patterns are. There are many, many different patterns practitioners look for and they involve movements that show up either in daily life or are required on the field. The basic ones are the squat, lunge, hinge, locomotion (walking), etc. However, if we tailor this more towards the baseball player we have to include rotational movements as well as cross-body movements, such as movements that require left shoulder and right hip activation, etc. If these movement patterns are poorly coordinated, the athlete’s performance will suffer. For example, if a player’s locomotion is uncoor