Shohei Ohtani Injury: A Human Performance and Baseball Injury Perspective
Shohei Ohtani remains day-to-day as he deals with several reported physical issues, including a right biceps issue, neck discomfort, and left-knee soreness. For an athlete carrying Ohtani’s extraordinary workload, multiple areas of discomfort raise an important human-performance question: could muscular fatigue and imbalances elsewhere in the body be contributing to the stress he is experiencing?
Ohtani’s situation also highlights an important issue in baseball injury prevention and performance: the cumulative physical demands of a long season.
Pitching requires coordinated force production through the legs, hips, trunk, spine, shoulder, and arm. Ohtani’s workload is especially unique because he combines the demands of pitching with those of being an elite hitter. Both activities require significant trunk rotation, stabilization, shoulder function, and lower-body strength.
Looking Beyond Ohtani’s Symptoms. I would Start with using Technology.
When evaluating baseball injuries, I don’t believe you should focus only on the area where an athlete feels discomfort.
In Ohtani’s case, I would begin by evaluating potential muscle imbalances using our medical-grade sensors to measure the strength of his core muscles during trunk and spinal rotation and spinal side bending. This would give us objective data showing where muscular limitations may exist.
Based on that data, I would immediately begin treatment using Muscle Activation Techniques (MAT), with a significant focus on improving trunk and spinal muscular function.
The Neck, Shoulder, and Knee Connection
Ohtani’s neck and shoulder would also be important areas to evaluate. Muscles involved in shoulder and scapular function interact closely with the cervical and thoracic spine, making muscular function throughout this region particularly important for a pitcher.
His reported left-knee soreness would also be assessed locally, along with the hips and trunk. Pitching and hitting both depend on the lower body to generate and control force, so I would not evaluate the knee in isolation.
Treat the Baseball Player, Not Just the Symptom
This is one of the fundamental principles behind my approach to baseball performance and injury prevention. The area where an athlete experiences symptoms is not necessarily the only area that needs attention.
With Ohtani, I would work locally around the biceps, shoulder, neck, and knee while placing a primary focus on identifying and improving muscular limitations throughout the trunk. Our technology will give us detailed insight to his baseline performance.
The goal of Muscle Activation Techniques would be to improve his muscular system’s ability to produce, absorb, and control the forces required for pitching, hitting, and performing at an elite level.
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