Dodgers’ Justin Wrobleski Spends 45 Minutes Warming Up. Here’s Why

On Sunday, the Los Angeles Dodgers added Justin Wrobleski to their National League Championship Series roster ahead of their matchup against the Milwaukee Brewers, bringing back the 26-year-old left-hander as a vital part of their bullpen as the team vies for another World Series run.

It’s yet another chapter in a breakout season for Wrobleski, who earned his first All-Star selection after a dominant first half serving as a starting pitcher in the team’s six-man rotation. In a May highlight, he held the Philadelphia Phillies to one hit over seven innings at Dodger Stadium, striking out nine batters with a fastball that reached 97 mph. On June 30, he struck out 11, a career-high.

Justin Wrobleski is the only Dodgers pitcher set to appear in Tuesday’s All-Star Game. The story of how Wrobleski got there includes plenty of twists and turns.

But performances like that are built long before Wrobleski steps onto the mound. Between starts, cross-country flights and the physical demands of a 162-game season, his training focuses on keeping his throwing shoulder strong, his core stable and his body ready to recover.

He has an unbothered way of describing it. “Sure, sometimes I’ll go out there and I’ll punch nine and I’ll pitch really well, seven innings,” he told LA Times Studios exclusively. But what he really talked about was everything that happens between those nights.

A starter’s week is built backward from the next start. With the Dodgers using a six-man rotation during the regular season, Wrobleski’s schedule shifted depending on where the off days land. The anchor of the week is the bullpen day, a controlled throwing session usually two days after he pitches. The coaching staff assigns him a time, and the day follows a set order.

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“I’ll get to the field, do my normal daily stuff that I try to get down,” Wrobleski told LA Times Studios exclusively. That starts with breathing work. It isn’t meditation, he explained, but a “get ready for the day” program built by a team the club works with, personalized with sensor data. He also admits he isn’t perfect about it. “I haven’t been as good about it recently,” he said. “It’ll just come in waves.”

Next comes mobility, which varies: sometimes a stretch from the training staff, sometimes not, all depending on what’s needed for the body for that day.

Then comes the part many recreational athletes skip. “Do my prep work,” he said. “Probably a 30-45 minute thing that I do every day just to get my body in the right place to start throwing.”

That’s roughly the length of a weekday drive from Santa Monica to downtown, spent getting ready before he throws a ball. If you’re giving your warm-up five minutes of arm circles or knee pulls before a Runyon Canyon climb or a heavy squat day, that number is worth thinking about.

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After that, the intensity goes up. “Then it’s plyo work, which is plyometric stuff. Everyone knows the wall balls and all that fun stuff.” Plyometrics are fast, explosive movements, like bouncing a medicine ball against a wall, that train muscles to produce force quickly. Then he plays catch and throws his bullpen.

He doesn’t just throw for volume. Before each session, he journals to decide exactly what he’s trying to improve that day. “You can’t just go out there and blow it out every day,” he said. “You got to be specific in what your targets are and what your goals are.”

The throwing is only half the day. “I have a shoulder care routine that I typically do – shoulder, forearm, the generic pitcher stuff, just trying to keep strong,” he said. “And then that day is my upper body lift day. So I’ll do my upper body lift, the conditioning, the shoulder care and then that’s it for that day.”

The order is deliberate. Skill work comes first while he’s fresh. Strength and conditioning come after, and the small stabilizing muscles that protect the shoulder get their own time instead of whatever energy is left over. It’s unglamorous work. It’s also what lets a pitcher keep producing explosive throws every fifth or sixth day for six months.

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The hardest part of this routine, he said, is protecting it on the road. Red-eye flights, day games after night games and East Coast swings all scramble the schedule, and recovery is what usually gets squeezed.

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He learned to adapt. “You have to have a process, you have to have a routine,” he said, “but you have to make it to where you’re not married to that routine. I think some guys get into trouble because, like, oh shoot, I don’t do this part of my routine. Now I’m panicking.”

Early in his pro career he tried to hit every item on his list every day. Bouncing between roles (leverage reliever, long reliever, starter) taught him which items actually matter. “You find out who you are, and you’re like, this is my checklist,” he said. “If I miss a couple of these things that I typically would do every day, I’m going to be okay.”

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For Wrobleski, the routine doesn’t end when he leaves the ballpark. He tracks his sleep, pays attention to his diet and sleep environment. Wrobleski is an ambassador for Intake, a magnetic nasal strip he says he uses every night. He started looking into a breathing assist after a broken jaw in college. “If that falls off,” he said of his sleep, “that’s when you’re going to start to notice performance decreases.”

He’s also planning well beyond this season. “It’s not about when you’re 25, 26, 27,” he said. “It’s about when you’re 34, 35, 36. Your recovery is kind of on you.”

The off-season doesn’t stop that. After staying ready through last fall’s postseason run, he took about a week and a half off. “The years of guys showing up in spring training and then throwing their first bullpen, that’s kind of over,” he said.

You don’t need a sensor program or a big-league training staff to borrow the structure:

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Alan LaGuardia is a senior content strategist at LA Times Studios, overseeing the content and direction of the Business by LA Times Studios sections and the Travel by LA Times Studios section.