Before Ryan Weathers switched uniforms over the winter, he changed the way that he trains.
The left-handed starter, who allowed one hit and struck out five over 3.2 scoreless innings in his spring debut on Wednesday, had already revamped his routine by the time the Yankees acquired him from the Marlins in January, making him Brian Cashman’s biggest external addition of the offseason. The makeover came with an assist from Mariners pitcher Cole Wilcox, Weathers’ friend and the co-founder of Peak Kinetic Performance. Wilcox had invited his buddy to set up shop at the Chattanooga, Tenn.,-based company a few times over the years, but Weathers didn’t want to abandon his old training methods until this past offseason, which came on the heels of two injury-riddled campaigns.
“I was like, ‘I gotta figure out any way to stay healthy,’” said Weathers, who has only thrown 125 big league innings the last two years thanks to forearm and lat strains in 2025 and a left index finger strain in 2024. “I did this before I got traded to the Yankees, and I was really seeing the benefits just playing catch and in my ability to recover, so I just kept doing it.”
By this, the 26-year-old is referring to his new routine. It is the product of movement assessments he did with PKP, which tested the mobility of Weathers’ shoulders, ankles and other joints. From there, they created a program that targeted “flagged areas” of Weathers’ body after the assessment found that push exercises had created unnecessary stress on his forearm and lat.
With that in mind, Weathers eliminated some lifting patterns in the weight room and implemented more ground-based rolling exercises that, with the help of a foam roller, focused on his spine.
“You’d be amazed at how many cracks I get whenever I just roll back and forth,” Weathers said, adding that he’ll sometimes sit on the ground, hold his knees and just rock back and forth.
Weathers also does a lot of hanging exercises now, dangling his 230-pound frame from pull-up bars in an effort to alleviate and stretch out his lat.
If that all sounds a bit tedious, that’s because it is by design.
“That’s kind of what I’m trying to create: a boring routine to where I feel good every time I throw,” Weathers said. “That’s what makes some guys really good. They have the same routine every day, and it could be boring, but it’s also probably why they’re healthy for 162-plus [games].”
That’ll play, @RyanDWeathers25 ⛽️
3.2 IP // 1 H // 0 ER // 0 BB // 5 K pic.twitter.com/CjSjR8OaqB
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) February 26, 2026
The Yankees didn’t have any issues with Weathers’ new routine when he reported to their player development complex in Tampa shortly after the trade, as he and the club concocted a lifting program that aligned with what the pitcher learned at PKP. Eric Cressey, the Yankees’ director of player health and performance, and Larry Adegoke, the team’s assistant strength and conditioning coach, offered their input but were “on the same page” as PKP, Weathers said.
“It seems like he really moved the needle with that this winter, getting in some good hands and understanding the arm care and the training and the eating and all that,” said Aaron Boone, who played with Weathers’ father, David. “It seems like he’s made a big discovery and is doing the right things.”
Weathers has experimented with other ways to stay healthy in the past, including a keto diet that coincided with some stomach problems. But he also lightly pushed back on his injury-prone reputation, describing some of his aches and pains as out of the ordinary.
“I had a finger injury that like only happens to rock climbers. It’s like, how can you prevent that? It was just one of those freak things,” Weathers said, adding that a case of dehydration likely caused his lat injury last season. “I’ve had just a couple weird ones.”
Either way, Weathers now has a routine that he thinks he’ll stick with, especially if it produces a healthy season and the electric results that the Yankees believe he is capable of.
“Our guys have been excited working with him,” Cashman said last month. “Hopefully we can unlock some things and his healthy years are right in front of him here in pinstripes, because the talent has never been in question.”
Weathers flashed that talent Wednesday in his evening start against the Nationals, as his fastball topped out at a career-high 99.8 mph and averaged a 16-inch induced vertical break. But he also tossed sweepers, changeups, sinkers and sliders — all five pitches had Stuff+ grades of 102 or higher — showing off a deep arsenal that yielded 12 whiffs.
With so many weapons at Weathers’ disposal, it’s no wonder that Boone feels the hurler has “only really scratched the surface of what he can do at the big league level.” And with the Yankees working to refine the usage of Weathers’ breaking balls and asking him to throw his sinker more against lefties, they think that cache can do even more damage moving forward.
Availability will be just as crucial, of course, and Weathers’ spring debut is merely the beginning of a grueling marathon. But as he begins a new chapter in his career, he’s confident that his body is where it needs to be.
“Hopefully, I can stay healthy,” Weathers said, “and I want to be maintaining my stuff into the sixth, seventh inning. Because that’s what makes a lot of these guys really good: they can maintain their stuff throughout the outing.
“That’s good if I can do it for a few games, but I want to do it all year.”
