The Sports Doctor, September 30, 2026

The Sports Doctor with Dr Robert Weil Pro Baseball's Mental Game, Youth Sports Pressure, and Women's Abundance with Ryan Roberts and Rebecca Whitman Dr. Bob Weil hosts a doubleheader, talking overuse injuries, youth sports pressure, and the mental game with former pro baseball player Ryan Roberts, then exploring tennis pressure, burnout, and high-performance abundance coaching with Rebecca Whitman. A Doubleheader Opens Live From Chicago Dr. Bob Weil opens live from Chicago with his usual sponsor rundown, thanking Global Schoolwear, Lower Extremity Review magazine, Bryan Therapeutics, and UK Health Radio, before promising a doubleheader with former pro baseball player Ryan Roberts and women's abundance coach Rebecca Whitman, plus his regular Sports Doctor's In segment. With baseball's playoffs underway and both the White Sox and Cubs in postseason play for the first time in years, Weil recalls recent conversations with Yankees team orthopedist Dr. Chris Ahmad about Tommy John surgery and its history, and about the surgeon's own observation that fifteen to twenty percent of these procedures now occur in teenagers. Weil frames the hour around that alarming overuse statistic, previewing a Friday appearance with Sharkie Zartman, co-author of his book #HeySportsParents, and setting up a discussion of the physical and mental pressures facing young athletes before his first guest can join the call. Youth Sports Pressure And The Mental Game While waiting for Ryan Roberts to connect, Weil elaborates on the overuse epidemic, calling it 'the mental game' that touches every level of sports, from grandmothers to Olympians to sports parents juggling a busy youth schedule. He describes his book's chapter 'The Prodigy Sports,' which addresses children as young as eleven or twelve who specialize aggressively early in gymnastics, figure skating, tennis, volleyball, or swimming, insisting that sport is all they want to do. Weil recalls decades-old conversations with Little League administrators shocked at how many kids quit the sport, and credits the late sports therapist Bob Gajda with popularizing the idea of 'training the opposites,' strengthening stabilizing muscles alongside the ones used to throw or swing. He repeats his standing recommendation that athletes of every age strengthen their feet and ankles and work on balance, pointing to the explosion of pickleball injuries among older adults as a case in point before turning to his delayed guest. Ryan Roberts On Life In The Pros Ryan Roberts finally joins by phone, apologizing for a technical delay, and tells Weil about an eight-team, twelve-year professional career that began with a 2003 draft and took him through the competitive AL East with the Yankees and Red Sox before a late-career stint in the NL West. He credits highly educated athletic trainers with teaching him how to care for his body and stay hydrated across a long season of travel. Asked about the mental game, Roberts says youth sports should stay about letting kids fail and learn, while professional baseball becomes, in his words, a real business with fast turnover and constant scrutiny, where a player must separate what he does for a living from who he is. He notes that clubhouses now employ full mental-performance staffs, a resource he says barely existed during his own playing days. Before signing off, Roberts points listeners to his supplement company, ryvvn.com, which makes a non-stimulant energy and electrolyte powder. A New Book For Sports Parents Between guests, Weil dedicates a segment to his new book, co-written with former Hall of Fame volleyball player Sharkie Zartman, #HeySportsParents: An Essential Guide for Any Parent with a Child in Sports, noting the two authors bring more than seventy years of combined youth-sports experience. He outlines its four sections: Sports Parenting 101, where Zartman covers coaching and the parent-coach relationship; The Sports Doctor Is In, his own material on injury prevention, choosing shoes, youth sports and drugs, essential exercises, youth football, and orthotics; Experts Speak Out, featuring eight contributors on nutrition, performance, and mental training; and The Parents' Perspective, drawn from about half a dozen sports parents. He also marks the tenth anniversary of Lower Extremity Review magazine, praising its evidence-based, multidisciplinary coverage of lower-extremity injuries for practitioners across specialties under the tagline 'Collaborative Care for Better Outcomes,' before returning listeners to the live conversation and introducing his second guest of the hour, Rebecca Whitman. Rebecca Whitman On Tennis And Abundance Weil welcomes Rebecca Whitman, calling her a high-performance women's abundance coach, podcaster, and speaker, and she describes being a nationally ranked junior tennis player by age eight, reaching the top forty in the country, and playing Division One tennis at Princeton before taking a thirty-year break from competition