By: Dr. Trey Martin PT, DPT
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The Yips created the worst years of my life.
A bit dramatic, eh? Not to me. The summer before my Freshman year of college baseball, I was struck down with the mythical "Yips". One game in Memphis, I (a catcher) overthrew the pitcher a few times. From then on, it was entrenched in my brain. I was quite literally petrified of throwing. It felt like every throw was headed straight for the ground. In reality, it would sail over the pitcher's head. I had made this throw over 100,000 times so how could I just break like this. At the time, I had absolutely no idea or what was happening. But, once it started, my head coach confessed that he too had struggled with such an issue and that it was a frequent virus to many baseball players. The Yips would plague me off and on for the next year. Frankly, I hit rock bottom of my baseball career during my Freshman year of college. I decided then to leave and focus on becoming a Doctor.
During physical therapy school, I learned two major things about the Yips that I wish I had known during my career.
1) Your personality type can increase the likelihood of experiencing the Yips. High performer/perfectionist personality types have more incidences. A side note, I first thought of this when I learned that a good chunk of my very high-strung (but amazing) classmates had struggled with the Yips during their throwing careers too. This became even more validated with this study: Personality Predictors of Yips and Choking Susceptibility.
2) My final clinical internship was at Champion PT and Performance. Mike Reinold and Lenny Macrina are the owners there, and they have been at the forefront of baseball rehab and performance for decades. I told Mike about my experience with the Yips and he brought up an interesting observation. He believes that thoracic outlet syndrome can cause physical symptoms of the Yips and lead to the onset. We have been seeing more and more incidences of thoracic outlet syndrome in throwers. His observation makes perfect sense. This reminded me of the story of Markelle Fultz, now the point guard of the Orlando Magic, and his struggles with shooting as a rookie. Other incidences that come to mind include Matt Harvey. Matt Harvey dominated the baseball world for his first 3 years until thoracic outlet syndrome and Tommy John derailed his career. He reported that he just couldn't "feel" the ball as well (a known symptom of thoracic outlet syndrome). This caused him to not be able to locate pitches like he used to. We can draw the correlation between optimal vascular and neural flow being important in throwing. We can also conclude how interruption of this could cause the Yips.
The Yips are still an unsolved mystery in the sports world, but I don't think it has to be that way anymore. We can address and treat the physical component (thoracic outlet syndrome) and also treat the psychological component. I embedded a Youtube video below where I talk about my experience with the Yips, what it feels like in detail, and possible solutions.
If you or your child are struggling with the Yips, I want you to know 2 things. 1) You aren't alone and it is more common than you think. 2) We can address the physical components of the Yips by treating it like a thoracic outlet syndrome case. Improving vascular and neural flow will improve the "feel" of throwing which will alleviate some of the Yips symptoms. From there, the psych component can be addressed by a sports psychologist.
The Yips have a special place in my mind of things I need to solve. If this hits home, please share this blog to Facebook using the share button! Also, if you have questions, fill out the contact box on my main page.
Thanks for reading, and I hope this brings awareness to this mysterious issue.