Thoracic Mobility for Rotational Athletes

In the baseball world, the idea of thoracic mobility for athletes has been on the hot stove, to say the least. Players are chasing rotation like it’s some kind of secret treasure, and the outcome of that belief often results in players cranking themselves into rotation without first assessing whether they actually need more rotation or just to make that rotation work for them.

Of course, rotational athletes need thoracic mobility to optimize shoulder function and allow for greater force transfer. However, more range also means more range to control, which is more difficult to accomplish.  Lack of control creates leaks in the kinetic chain, which can increase the potential for overuse injuries.

We must remember that

mobility is a combination of range of motion and movement

Drills and exercises aimed at just improving range of motion do not develop the motor control and strength component of mobility.

If you are looking to make lasting changes that transfer to performance, it is important to understand that there are active and passive components to mobility.  The crucial first step is determining which of these components an athlete needs to work on.

Why should rotational athletes care?

Rotational athletes rotate. How they rotate is going to be different for everyone. The body doesn’t actually care about the how, it just takes the most energy efficient (essentially the easiest) road to get the job done. Thumbs up. The downside is that this is obviously a ticking bomb.

The structure of the thoracic spine makes it very suitable for lateral flexion and rotation.  As such, when seeking rotation, much of that movement should come from the thoracic spine.  If an athlete lacks thoracic mobility, it will find somewhere else to get it from.  Down the line, other regions will become subject to repetitive microtrauma, which eventually, leads to macrotrauma.  It is not uncommon to see lack of thoracic mobility in athletes complaining of elbow and/or shoulder issues.

Thoracic spine rotation, then, is considered an important prerequisite for rotational athletes. Does the athlete have the minimum amount of rotation required to get into the right positions? Rotation is required to allow the famous “hips to shoulder separation” (more on that in a future article), but mainly, to allow the scapula to retract and posteriorly tilt to create a stable base for the arm:

An athlete who lacks thoracic rotation will most likely be unable to hold the position and will have to initiate the acceleration part of his rotation sooner. The other possibility, as previously mentioned, is that he will compensate elsewhere to accomplish the task at hand. Both are killers for efficiency.

For a rotational athlete, 50-70° of active range of motion is a passing grade; if they can get to 70-90°, that’s elite stuff, but that might also be excessive as more range of motion comes with more possibility for motor errors and loss of control.

In the case where an athlete does not meet the prerequisite, then it would be a good start to use exercises to acquire some rotation. By using the seated t-spine rotation test as an exercise, they can use assistance, use it as a PNF, or mix it with breathing to gain some range of motion.

The prisoner T-spine rotation in the half kneeling position is also helpful and allows the athlete to focus on rotation range of motion with assistance from the wall.  WATCH THE MAIN VIDEO TO SEE HOW THESE EXERCISES ARE PERFORMED

What about athletes who already meet the standard?

Just because thoracic spine rotation is important doesn’t mean that you necessarily need to crank all of your athletes into it. They just need enough to work properly. This is not gymnastics where they are judged for their range of motion;

they just need enough rotation for efficient motion

Having said that, it’s important to know who you’re working with so that you don’t drive excessive mobility into an individual who already has more than enough of it.  The hypermobile athlete needs to work on the active components of mobility.  To get an idea of what I mean, head to this article.

To use Eric Cressey’s words: “When you take someone who is really lax and implement aggressive static stretching, it’s on par with having someone with a headache bang his/her head against a wall.  It makes things worse.”

This is an important distinction that should be made because it’s where mistakes happen.

As previously stated, our body is incredible at adaptation. A great amount of athletes are going to have adapted to the specific demands of their sport and already have a tremendous amount of rotation (and probably a flat thoracic spine, a subject for another day).

Rotational athletes need the ability to rotate to put themselves into efficient positions. Most of the time when we succeed at something, we feel great, so we keep doing it. In rotational sports, the players who stick to the sport are often going to be those who are naturally good at rotation. That’s some Darwinian thinking, but this natural selection leaves us with a population that is generally naturally mobile. The question then becomes: should these athletes seek mobility via range of motion? Or is it more likely that we need to monitor their mobility and help them create stability (ie. control and strength) to allow their mobility to work in their favor?

Having control within available range of motion is what’s important down the road. Congrats on getting them into those crazy positions, but do they have access to that without assistance? This is where active vs passive range of motion comes into play. The gap between active and passive is where injuries have a tendency to occur because there is no control, no awareness and no strength there.   But when athletes are playing their sport, there are external forces acting on them that take them out of the range they would usually be able to get to.  Their movements might take them beyond their end range because of momentum. Our goal then is to reduce that gap so we can make sure they have control through as much range of motion as possible.

The analogy we can use for that is that we shouldn’t dig them a hole they can’t get out of. There might be diamonds at the bottom, but they’re worth nothing if they can’t bring them home!

If an athlete already has enough range of motion, driving more passive range is inefficient and counterproductive.  Maintain and monitor their mobility with active range of motion exercises which challenge multiple components at once. Stability and control exercises like the wide stance horizontal woodchop or Pallof press are great fundamentals to challenge stability and improve control.  WATCH THE MAIN VIDEO TO SEE HOW THESE EXERCISES ARE PERFORMED

To rotate or not to rotate, that is the question

It is a given that rotational athletes need rotation.  While it doesn’t automatically make athletes better at their sport, it does allow for more efficient positioning to store potential energy and transfer force to the next segment. It is also a very important in preventing overuse injuries to other susceptible areas such as the shoulders and elbows.

Perhaps a better question is: how to rotate or not rotate?  Mobility has active and passive components and even a skill component.  The key is determining which component is missing to achieve the skill: range of motion, motor control and/or strength?  If a player already has range of motion, or even excessive range of motion, we need a plan to make that range of motion work for them.  If an athlete is lacking range of motion, that needs to be addressed first.  The bottom line is, we need to know.

It doesn’t actually take much talent to develop thoracic mobility for efficiency of positioning and force transfer, but it does take a well-designed plan that targets the right components based on an assessment of each athlete’s needs.

article by Marc-Antoine Bérubé

in collaboration with Mai-Linh Dovan M.SC., CAT(C)

Marc-Antoine has been involved in baseball for many years. He played within Baseball Québec’s structure, at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College and the University of Pittsburgh. In 2015, he was selected in the MLB Draft by the Oakland Athletics.  Since retiring, Marc-Antoine has be­en transmitting his passion to young prospects as the pitching coach for the Académie Baseball Canada.