While there are tests or assessments I’ll do on just about everyone, I think you need to get more specific in your testing depending on the demands of the sport or activity in which an individual participates.
Case in point, I was working with firefighter recruit today who was having some ankle and achilles tendon pain when he ran.
[Note: Why do does every training academy feel it necessary to run their candidates to death. It’s really not a great choice of training modality. Mike Berry at www.strengthcats.com has been promoting the importance of strength training for firefighters for years and rightly so. Check it out]
He’s been catching a lot of flack from his superiors because as long as he’s not running, he’s essentially painfree. They think he’s trying to get out the long runs.
In testing him in the clinic, there really wasn’t much that was influencing his symptoms. Range of motion, isolated and gross movements and strength testing, special tests, and several others failed to reproduce his pain.
So I had him run. And run some more…until he started to feel the symptoms in his achilles.
Then I retested him.
After running, his gluteus medius tested weak, he was unable to actively dorsiflex his affected ankle equal to his unaffected side, and his pronation increased during gross movement testing. The unaffected side continued to test normally.
With these findings, we can now address his weaknesses and provide some adaptive taping and temporary shoe modifications to get him back to normal training.
The take home point is that had I not tested him in the environment in which he was symptomatic, my conclusions may have agreed with his superiors and this guy wouldn’t have a shot at becoming a firefighter.
Make sure that your assessments give you the information you need by addressing the actual training environment.
Bill
P.S. You can get more info on the effects of fatigue and forces and how they affect testing and performance in the Indy Performance Enhancement Seminar DVD’s