Foundational movement testing:
Hardware: Mobility and Flexibility of joints, fascia and nerve tension
Software: Strength, coordination, motor control and balance
Precision movements start with healthy joints that have full and pain free motion. Without full joint mobility, range of motion will of course be limited and also include secondary limitations in muscle coordination and strength. Our practitioners have the highest level of orthopedic manual therapy training, certifications and recognition. These skills allow them to 3-dimensionally assess each joint, and determine how they work together in functional patterns. Decades of clinical training and practice has provided our experts the knowledge, skill and experience to identify subtle restrictions and restore joint mobility.
What the Annual Checkup Covers:
- 3-dimensional hands on analysis of every joint
- Range of motion and flexibility assessment, including motion of the nervous system
- Motor performance – more than just strength measures, this includes motor timing, strength ratios, asymmetries and balance
This examination is recommended for:
- Athletes that want to maintain an edge with a finely tuned body
- Athletes combining off a significant injury or surgery that want to track their progress to surpass their performance pre-injury
- Having sustained a previous injury— The primary risk factor for sports injury is previous injury. Just because an area is pain free does not mean it has full and efficient movement.
- Our older athletes that want to — Play Hard, Play Fast and Play Forever
It all starts with your joints.
Can you believe there are even more than 301 joints in the body? If these hinges aren’t moving well, it doesn’t matter what your muscles are doing. Even a small restriction in joint motion can alter balance and movement patterns, lowering performance. Receptors in joints, ligaments and tendons are damaged with injuries that can lead to reduced strength, altered motor timing and impaired balance. Even without injuries, habits in working out or repetitive patterns in a specific sport can lead to overtraining one region of the body while undertraining another. Identifying these asymmetries in strength or muscle activation can guide you in modifying your training to give you the edge you are looking for.
At PT Motion Lab you have availability to master clinicians in physical therapy with the highest national and international level of manual therapy training and credentials. These hands-on skills to assess and treat joint function take years of mentoring and practice. Even small limitations in joint motion can adversely affect performance and increase risk of injury. Assessing and treating the biomechanical chain of joints in the trunk and extremities not only takes good hands but a deep understanding of how these joint systems work together. A full head-2-toe manual therapy experience including joint mobilization, joint manipulation and soft tissue work from a master clinician. Our physical therapy team, with extensive manual therapy training, are best qualified for this assessment, working through the entire body.
Movement Testing
If motion is limited it is necessary to know why prior to prescribing an intervention—stretching and foam rolling does not solve everything. Asymmetrical motion has many implications for performance, agility, strength and reducing injury risk. When joints are limited in mobility the surrounding tissues lose flexibility. Just restoring joint mobility through manual therapy techniques does not necessarily restore mobility of all surrounding soft tissues. Complex frameworks of collagen connect the different body segments. Maintaining normal flexibility assists with proper force transfer throughout these connective tissues frames.
Peripheral nerves, in the arms and legs, require full mobility to avoid abnormal tension. They do not stretch but the surrounding muscles need flexibility to avoid stressing them. Often muscles will maintain a higher level of tension to protect a nerve making the muscle prone to being injured, as it will not fully relax and lengthen during athletic performance. The most common example is tearing a hamstring that is trying to protect an irritated sciatic nerve. Elevated tension in the upper trapezius and scalene muscles may be trying to protect nerves leaving your neck into the upper extremity. This is not uncommon after a neck stinger injury or neck sprain.
Measuring asymmetries in the body is not as important as understanding why the limitations exist. Our physical therapy team can help determine what tissue(s) is causing the limitation to better address and dose a flexibility program.
Performance
Testing muscles involves more than just strength, requiring a proper “software” assessment of motor patterns of body segments and motor control of joint movements. Gross strength is an important part of this screening process but even more important is assessing smaller deficits in how you activate and sequence muscle firing for efficient movement — which we refer to as your software. Powerful and precise movements require optimal functioning of both the hardware and software.
All cash pay services provided by the PTMotionLab are deemed not medically necessary by medical insurance and physical therapy services, and therefore are not covered. All evaluations and interventions are intended to reduce the risk of impaired movement, improve performance and longevity. Whether an annual checkup, preseason sports screen, return to play from injury, or enhancing well being, we are able to customize a product to meet your needs. During the course of evaluation or movement analysis conditions may be identified that require medical attention, requiring a referral back to physical therapy for rehabilitation.
Let us screen restore your joint mobility, flexibility and motor performance so you can Play Hard, Play Fast and Play Forever