Yoga, Biomechanics, and Baseball: Bringing Research Into the Conversation

Steph capturing mobility data for yoga research.

In professional baseball, performance decisions are driven by evidence. Pitching places extreme demands on the shoulder, spine, and hips, and even small changes in movement quality or recovery can influence availability over the course of a season. While yoga had long been used informally in baseball settings, there was limited biomechanical data to help performance departments evaluate its impact.

In 2019, I was proud to lead a research project that explored how yoga-based movement might influence post-throwing biomechanics in professional pitchers. The work was later featured in Sports Business Journal, marking an important step in bringing objective analysis to a practice that had often been discussed only anecdotally.

Designing Yoga for Baseball Demands

This project was built around a simple question: What happens when yoga is designed specifically for the biomechanical demands of pitching — and measured accordingly?

Rather than approaching yoga as a general recovery session, the programming was structured to reflect the realities of throwing: rotational demands, spinal extension and flexion, shoulder range of motion, and fatigue management. Wearable sensor technology was used to observe changes in movement patterns the day after pitching, allowing for objective comparison rather than subjective feedback alone.

What the Early Data Suggested

While the study was exploratory in nature, the results were encouraging. Pitchers who participated in the yoga-based sessions showed improvements across several movement variables related to mobility and rotation when compared with control conditions. These findings helped shift the conversation from whether yoga “belongs” in baseball to how it can be applied with intention and measured alongside other performance tools.

More importantly, the research demonstrated that yoga does not need to exist outside the performance ecosystem. When sequencing is informed by sport demands and outcomes are evaluated biomechanically, yoga can be discussed in the same analytical language as strength training, conditioning, and recovery protocols.

Why This Work Mattered

At the time, there was a noticeable gap between how often yoga was being used in professional sports environments and how little data existed to support or refine its application. This project aimed to bridge that gap by aligning yoga with metrics that performance departments already valued: movement efficiency, range of motion, and recovery readiness.

For baseball in particular — a sport deeply invested in biomechanics — this approach created a more productive entry point for movement-based recovery work. It allowed yoga to be evaluated not as a trend, but as a potential contributor to durability and performance.

Moving the Conversation Forward

Since that research was published, performance models across sports have continued to evolve. Today, teams are less interested in labels and more focused on integration. The question is no longer “Should we do yoga?” but “How do we support movement quality, recovery, and nervous system regulation within the constraints of the season?”

This research was an early step in that direction — demonstrating that yoga, when applied thoughtfully and evaluated through a biomechanical lens, can earn its place in performance conversations grounded in evidence.