Can adjusting your swing or tweaking your pitching delivery cause timing issues?

Absolutely.

Maintaining natural movement patterns is crucial for success.

Movements shouldn’t be overly controlled—they should flow naturally.

This enhances a player’s perception and leads to improved overall performance. It’s all part of the Perception/Action Cycle—every movement is a response to what your body perceives.

Yet, even today, the focus remains on the “standard culture” of optimal movement patterns, and players are expected to conform to this ideal.

A perfect example of this is seen in modern pitching with ‘Pitch Design’, where pitchers are asked to adjust their arm slots—either raising or lowering their arms to get better data on certain pitches. This is often done without understanding the two absolutes of a pitcher’s motor preferences, which determine what their most effective, energy-saving, and healthiest arm slot is.

Forcing these changes is asking for trouble, and daily we see the negative effects of this, with a record number of injured pitchers in both professional and amateur baseball.

But it’s time to evolve. Player development shouldn’t just be about biomechanics and data—it must also account for the internal processes that drive movement.

Knowing each player’s natural, individual motor preferences is critical. Body intelligence is far more important than anything else because it’s a living and survival system.

Without this understanding, giving instructions becomes pointless and could even harm performance or lead to injury. In such cases, you need to coach the intention and let the action self-organize rather than dictate specific movements.

If you’re not in your natural posture, you can’t fully process the information. You know what’s going on, you feel it, but you can’t act on it—you’re always late.

In your natural posture, you’re ahead of the game, adapting with ease. Spending hours in the gym won’t fix this!

Perception and action are two sides of the same coin. Let’s move beyond outdated standards and help athletes unlock their true potential by honouring their individuality!