Force Plate Assessments
We’re thrilled to introduce our latest diagnostic technology – Force Plate Assessment. This cutting-edge tool allows us to measure the forces exerted by the body during movement, providing valuable insights into biomechanics and performance. Discover how Force Plate Assessment can revolutionise your injury recovery process and enhance your sports performance by booking an initial Physiotherapy appointment with Claire today!
What are Force Plates?
Force plates are cutting edge technology that use intuitive software to allow quick & easy assessment of stability, strength and movement, allowing analysis at the touch of a button. Force plates allow us to take the guesswork out of rehabilitation by giving us unparalleled insights into neuromuscular performance, asymmetries and movement strategies. They provide objective quantitive data on ground reaction forces, which are essential for understanding how a client’s body interacts with the ground during various activities. This data is critical for accurately assessing biomechanical performance and movement patterns, such as gait, balance and jump dynamics. We can then identify with accuracy subtle imbalances and asymmetries that may not be visible to the naked eye.
Do you want personalised rehabilitation?
When you experience ongoing pain , suffer from injury or undergo surgery, your body responds in a number of ways. As we’re all unique, those responses can vary widely from person to person. This affects us all differently; physically in how we move, how strong we are in our sporting and daily tasks and also mentally as we all have different perspectives and worries associated with our condition.
Research shows just how personalised our response to injury can be. Here at Sligo Physio Space, we feel that your rehabilitation should reflect that. To be accurate in that approach, we have equipped our rehabilitation facility with the most accurate testing equipment around. We feel the Force Plates allow us to give you the most accurate information to guide your rehabilitation.
What will be assessed?
Isometric strength testing
We use these tests to measure the strength of the muscles that are most relevant to your condition. You will be asked to produce as much force as possible while in a static position for 5 seconds at a time against some force plates or handheld dynamometers. These pieces of equipment will give us a very accurate measure for how much force you can produce and, therefore, how strong you are. These tests will then rule in or out certain aims of your rehabilitation. For example, if you have very strong hamstrings but weak quad muscles, we will want to target the quads
Jump profiling
If you are looking to return to sports that require some amount of explosiveness, making sure that these qualities aren’t a factor in your injury is important. We have series of single-leg and double-leg jumps that you will perform on our force plates. These force plates are able to give detailed information on how high you jump, the speed of your jump, how much force you produce, whether you are favouring one leg over the other or if there is a difference between legs. These help to inform us as to how much and what type of explosive and reactive strength training you need to do to get you back to your sport or activity
What does the result of the test tell you?
The most common things we are looking for in these tests are –
- How strong you are overall – we can compare with a database of hundreds of thousands of other anonymised tests using parameters such as age, gender, sport etc for comparison
- The difference in your strength from side to side
- How reactive you are – relevant for sports/activities which require unplanned change of direction or acceleration
- How much endurance you have in certain area – repeated hops for instance show us if you have an issue with fatigue or conditioning within a certain area of your body
- Your loading strategy – whether you tend to put more weight through one leg vs another for instance. You’d be amazed at how many people are unaware of issues with this.
Who is it for?
Force plate assessment is for anyone looking for the most efficient and effective rehabilitation available. Regardless of your age or the activity you are hoping to return to, our aim is to help you get there.
We see athletes looking to return to GAA after injury, runners looking to reduce pain or improve performance, golfers and walkers looking to reduce knee or hip pain so they can keep playing and walking, and we see people before and after surgeries including joint replacements.
Our testing is for those with plantar fascia and achilles pain, knee pain, hamstring strains, hip and groin pain, low back pain, shoulder pain and pre- and post-surgeries.
Your Physiotherapy assessment will includes the tests most relevant to your injury and to the activities you want to return to alongside your rehabilitation session with your physiotherapist or strength and conditioning coach if you are rehabilitating with us. You will also receive a detailed report from the session indicating all of the areas that you will be working on in your rehabilitation and your training program using our exercise app.
Pre and postsurgery testing
Your surgeon may choose to refer you for Force Plate assessment before surgery so you are confident in what happens with your rehabilitation after surgery. We will carry out some tests to assess range of movement, strength and power, and start your rehabilitation exercises with you on the day.
We will identify areas for you to develop so that you are set for a smooth rehabilitation by being stronger going into the surgery and making sure many of the exercises you will be doing are familiar. You may be also referred for force plate assessment after surgery, rather than before to assess progress, work out why you are struggling with the last few percent of improvement, or to give your physiotherapist or Consultant surgeon data to make changes to your program
What happens after the testing?
Your physiotherapist will go through your results with you showing you the areas that you need to work in your rehabilitation. The second half of your session is about coaching you through your training program that is fully personalised based on you and your results and gives the best chance for a successful rehabilitation.
We will set achievable but challenging targets for you to hit so that you can track your progress. We will send you home with a program of exercises and progress these in line with your progress at your follow up sessions.
Is it just for sporty people?
Absolutely not, we all have to experience and dissipate force on a day to day basis, and the way we manage these forces help us to stay fit and healthy. These tests are applicable for anyone that moves, it doesn’t matter if you are involved in sport or not. Knowledge regarding how we are moving and using the forces that we create as a result of this helps us to create more accurate and specific rehab plans, getting you the results you need.
Is the force plate just for lower body issues?
No, there is some great research to support tests on the force plate as a predictor of shoulder injury, and as a gateway for return to play following surgery.