From magic shows to MLB: Robyn Cohen follows unique path to Reds' Pilates coach

There may not be another person in Major League Baseball with the same job as Robyn Cohen, and that’s fitting for her unique path into sports.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in dance performance and that was her passion when she moved to Los Angeles after college. Later, she worked as a magician’s assistant for years and appeared in illusionist stunts. She was a Pilates instructor for physical therapy patients during the week while traveling for magic shows on the weekends.

Pilates may not have been at the forefront in the beginning, but it is now. Cohen is on the Cincinnati Reds’ big-league staff as their Pilates and mobility coach.

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“I feel like a cat who has lived a million different lives,” Cohen said. “I never thought I would be in baseball.”

Almost all MLB teams have the same structure for their health and performance staff. There are strength and conditioning coaches, athletic trainers and nutritionists. Massage therapists are common, especially for teams with Japanese players because they’re accustomed to a different training regimen.

Cohen, who is a contractor and not a Reds employee, holds the unique role focused solely on Pilates and holistic exercises. She’s the only person who doesn’t fit in the aforementioned categories, according to a review of all 30 teams’ media guides. She’s not aware of any other Pilates coaches who work with players daily before games, travel with the team and bring their own reformer.

It’s a different route for a person who performed for professional dance companies, appeared in music videos and choreographed pieces. She embraced becoming a magician’s assistant, “I swapped out muscular injuries for bruises basically,” where she performed at halftime shows, the Fourth of July parade in Washington, D.C., and on a TV series.

“I was an artist,” Cohen said. “I loved theatre and performing. The sports world was honestly a little out of my realm.”

Baseball career began with 1 player

Cohen built up her career in baseball after working with a single player. Former Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Joc Pederson was interested in Pilates and the team’s director of player performance, Brandon McDaniel, lived near the studio where Cohen worked.

Baseball is an asymmetrical sport. Players throw, swing and rotate from one side. The benefits of Pilates are maintaining a balance. Working with Pederson and McDaniel during an offseason led to more work with the Dodgers. She’d spend a week or two with the team during spring training and she made visits during rookie camps.

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“My first big-league camp, she was there,” said former Reds shortstop Kyle Farmer, who began his career with the Dodgers. “My hips were tight. My lower back hurt. I tried out Pilates and it worked. It’s just a different workout rather than lifting weights. I always thought you needed to big and strong, but it’s all about flexibility.”

What changed everything for Cohen was a seven-player trade between the Reds and Dodgers. Three of the players she worked with, Farmer, Matt Kemp and Yasiel Puig, were sent to Cincinnati. She reached out to Kemp to see if he was interested in still working with her during spring training, encouraged by McDaniel to broaden outside the Dodgers.

The Reds never had a Pilates coach, but they had a reformer on site for players rehabbing from injuries. There were no promises about it turning into an official arrangement, but she was welcome to work with interested players.

“It’s almost free marketing when other guys see someone who is an All-Star like Matt Kemp or Puig, then they are like, ‘well what are they doing? I want to do that. That looks like it feels good,’” Cohen said. “That just caught on like wildfire.”

It went so well the Reds asked for Cohen’s help to hire a Pilates coach in Cincinnati, so players could continue doing the exercises after spring training ended.

Five days before the start of the 2019 season, former Reds strength coach Sean Marohn returned to Cohen. The players wanted to work with her specifically. She was asked what it would take to work in Cincinnati during the season.

Joining the Reds was not an easy decision

Cohen was torn. Taking the job would upend everything she was doing in Los Angeles. She’d need to find someone to sublease her apartment. She’d no longer work at the physical therapy office. She’d lose her clientele in Los Angeles.

“I was on a three-month contingency with the Reds to see if the players held retention, so it was scary,” Cohen said, “but I was ready to take a leap of faith and see how this goes.”

Cohen’s first season went as well as she could’ve hoped. There were things she loved about living in Cincinnati, particularly easier commutes and the cost of living.

“I had been in L.A. for 13 years and I was just so over it at that point,” Cohen said. “After getting a taste of how much easier my life could be in Cincinnati, I was ready for a change.”

Following the 2019 season, Cohen packed up her stuff in Los Angeles and started shipping it to a storage unit in Cincinnati. She was committed to making it work.

Then another curveball.

The pandemic hit, the baseball season paused and Cohen was furloughed on the day she moved into an apartment in Cincinnati.

“It was just comical,” Cohen said. “I’m swimming in a sea of boxes as Sean calls me and was like, ‘we have to let you go. Hopefully, you’ll be back, but we don’t know.’ Then I was like, do I unpack? Do I find a new job?’”

Fortunately, she kept the job she wanted and returned to the Reds once the baseball season resumed in 2020. Since then, she’s continued to grow into a larger role with the club.

During road trips in her first few seasons, she had to find a nearby Pilates studio, barter with them to rent equipment, arrange a rental truck, set up the equipment at the stadium and then return it before the end of the last game. That’s why it was a big moment when the team invested in her own reformer, which needed to be specifically designed to fit onto the team plane and light enough for her to travel with it.

She’s grateful for people who supported her one-of-a-kind role in the organization ranging from former health and performance director Geoff Head to manager David Bell.

Team support includes manager David Bell

“David, it’s been great having him because he believes in what I do,” Cohen said. “He even condensed some of his trunks into soft bags so my equipment could fit on the plane.”

Cohen’s work with players, which is individualized for each person, begins about six hours before games and she’s usually done by the time the game starts. On the road trips she doesn’t travel, she’ll send players videos of specific stretches so they can maintain their routine.

When she finally had her own reformer, she felt like she was on top of the world. It meant she no longer had to rent equipment in all the road cities she visited.

There is a logo on the side of the reformer’s case. It features a cartoon of her standing on a reformer while wearing a cape. The words “Mobility Maven” surround it.

“I was one of those people that rode the wave of 'let’s see where my life takes me,'” Cohen said. “I never thought that baseball would be a career path or choice of mine, but this is like the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Reds Pilates coach Robyn Cohen took unique path to baseball