Motor Preference Could Be Next Big Thing in Sports Performance, Injury Prevention

No, this isn’t a matter of wanting a 2.7 liter V6 EcoBoost V6 instead of a 5.8 liter V8 Hemi. When we talk about motor preference in this context, it’s a matter of understanding the nuances involved in how a person’s body naturally wants to move. As a very basic primer on what that means, cross your arms over your chest. Now try to cross them the other way. You could also clasp your hands together and then do it again with the opposite thumb on top.

One way feels perfectly natural while the other, at least for most folks, feels utterly foreign. The same is true for a number of movements because our bodies are made to operate asymmetrically in order to optimize functionality. You have a dominant hand, foot, and eye, but you also have a specific way you like to hold your arms at your side or which leg bears more weight when you stand. Your gait when walking or running tells a lot about your motor preference and how you’re built to move.

I was introduced to this topic by Mike Medici, my son’s travel organization directory, who learned of it from University of Maryland head baseball coach Matt Swope. There’s a connection to Pelotero app founders, former professional hitting coach Bobby Tewksbary and former big leaguer Chris Colabello, as well. The common thread is that everyone involved is seeking ways to further individualize the way athletes — baseball players in particular — are developed. With all due respect to even the most renowned coaches out there, a lot of what ends up happening is based on luck.

Some guy out there might be doing the goofiest drills with the weirdest implements, but he looks like a genius when Aaron Judge turns into latter-day Barry Bonds. But the same instructor might look like an idiot for swinging a propellor bat on one leg if his premier student’s motor preferences didn’t fall in line with those teachings. So much of what we’re used to with both pitching and hitting is a matter of trying to make players move in prescribed ways that we’ve been taught for decades are correct.

Thing is, that often requires athletes to conform to certain mechanics that lead to them fighting their own bodies. I’m reminded of Bruce Lee, who created Jeet Kune Do by eliminating traditional fixed positions in favor of a “style of no style.” Imagine going to a baseball practice and seeing half of the players training one way and the other half doing an entirely different set of drills and stretches. That’s exactly how Swope’s Terrapins do things, and it’s something we may see more of as American sports catch up to what’s been going on in Europe for nearly four decades.

Oh, for a day when youth sports can be bio-banded so that kids are competing against their physiological peers rather than those who are most similar chronologically. Part of the reason foreign-born players have risen to prominence in the NBA is that the focus outside of America isn’t on assembling teams of studs from all over the country just to win tournaments. In general, there’s a greater focus on fundamentals while still letting the body move freely.

While this topic isn’t as binary as splitting types of movement into just two categories, we can broadly define all athletes as either aerial or terrestrial. One group initiates movement from the top, the other from the bottom. Armed with just that rudimentary knowledge, a lightbulb went off for me. My son is an aerial, but he’d been fighting his body because so much of what we tried to do in the batter’s box and on the mound was meant to create ground force. As it turns out, getting him taller on the mound and striding slightly open on his swing immediately unlocked better movement patterns.

There’s so much more to it — motor shoulder, axial vs. large, associated vs. disassociated — and Swope gets more detailed in the video below, but we’ll stay high-level for now. My hope is to eventually do a deeper dive with Swope himself and one of his former players, Matt Shaw. Recently named the Cubs’ No. 1 prospect, Shaw was a standout at Maryland in part because he wholeheartedly bought into the benefits of motor preference.

It didn’t hurt that Shaw is a stereotypical cage rat who grew up with a Little League field in his literal backyard, but hard work alone won’t get you to the bigs. Dude went from a relative unknown outside of fervent college baseball fans and draftniks to a Kris Bryant-esque trajectory that could have the Cubs willing to move on from Nico Hoerner in order to make room for Shaw on the infield. One scout I spoke with raved about Shaw’s talent and ability to have an impact in Chicago, and it’s easy to see why when you look at how he’s torn through the system.

With all that helium, it still came as a surprise to me that Shaw is an aerial mover. I took him for a terrestrial due to his stocky frame, but look at this video from one of his recent homers and it makes sense. He’s got a big leg kick and lands on his front toe, then you see his back foot come off the ground rather than remaining anchored. Shaw is also very much an associated mover, for what it’s worth.

Matt Shaw. Slow motion. Oppo taco. Homer. pic.twitter.com/xUd3n2LiLj

— Greg Huss (@OutOfTheVines) August 23, 2024

I could easily go on about this for several hundred words, especially after falling down a rabbit hole and staying up late last night going through several videos from Swope and his company, Motor Preference Experts. They’ve got a YouTube channel with several bite-sized tutorials on different topics if you’re similarly interested. I firmly believe this is the Next Big Thing in athletic development, and not only because of what it can mean for performance.

American athletic development has largely been rooted in maximizing rather than optimizing, which could be what’s driving baseball’s injury epidemic. Beyond just trying to make athletes better and more efficient, understanding their motor preferences could lead to the holy grail of injury prevention. We’ve still got a long way to go and nothing’s foolproof, but this looks like a huge step in the right direction. Or maybe in the preferred direction.