Integrating Force Plates Technology - Being The Best At Helping Athletes Move From Rehab to Performance… And Stay There

The way physical therapists objectively measure progress within the return to sport continuum is not created equal.

In many physical therapy facilities that are not up to standard, Per research from 2017 by Greenburg et al, 76% of PTs use only Manual Muscle Testing (AKA guessing) and/or tissue healing times to determine progressions through a patient’s rehab timeline. This means only 24% of the surveyed therapists used some sort of functional test, and even then we are learning these tests aren’t testing what we once believed.

For many people going through a return from injury, their physical therapy experience is filled with standardized exercise that is not tailored to what this person needs to get back to doing the activities and sports the way they used to be able to perform. Even if they are able to return to their sport, many athletes rightfully do not return to get help returning to activities when they experience their next injury bout because of the lack of individualization in their return to sport programming.

At HQPT, we know there is a better way to treat people throughout their return to play process. We have begun administering testing protocols with VALD force plates to better understand where a patient is on their “road map” towards a TRUE and full return to play in a way they expect and deserve.

When the tests are administered consistently and correctly (a blog for another time), the PT and athlete are given invaluable data-points regarding an athlete’s physical capacities at the time of testing. Otherwise the patient would be going off of what the PT can see with their eyes, which in most cases is as good as flipping a coin.

Diagram Above - Courtesy of Bishop et al. NCSA May 2023

At HQPT, we use these tools to Profile and Monitor healthy athletes, as well as better progress athletes through their injury-rehab processes. For the sake of this article, we will focus on just using countermovement jumps (CMJ) due to their ease in set up and performance. Diagram Above - Courtesy of Bishop et al. NCSA May 2023

When profiling and monitoring healthy athletes, our tests and measures help us understand what the athlete already does well and what they may need to work on in order to improve their physical performance in their sport or activity of choice.

At times, the metrics give us information that is intuitive (get stronger…duh) but what the force plates allow us to do during a CMJ is analyze how fast they are interacting with the ground during any given moment of the jumping tasks. This gives us an idea of not only how high they are able to jump (an output of force), but also how fast they are able to achieve this output of force (see peak power, and impulse in above graphic). Nearly all sports’ success is time-constraint based. What the force plates allow us to do is track if an athlete is improving their general force production during specific parts of the jumping tasks. If they are able to express this force faster, thus becoming more efficient, they are likely improving their ability to perform against their opponent in a sports-specific task.

What we cannot do reliably with these athletes is use asymmetry data from the force plates to make ANY predictions of injury. If anyone nocebos you into thinking you are more at risk for injury based on these metrics or any other floofy tests, please run from their scare tactics, they aren’t that smart!

When testing for asymmetries becomes more valued is when an athlete is coming back from a specific lower extremity injury. We are able to track how each phase of the jump is being formed side to side, and helps us measure if the injured limb is either accepting force or producing force during a jump, or if the athlete is protecting the injury site while still performing the tasks being asked of them. If deficits are noticed at any piece of the jump, we can curate a plan to address these deficits. And as we see improvements with these deficits, we can then continue to progress the jumping into more difficult tasks to prepare the athlete towards their return to their sport or activity of choice!

The best way to utilize force plate testing is to have data points from when you are healthy, so if an injury does happen in the future there are strong metrics for where you need to return to, and potentially better than, before you return back to the court or field.

Please reach out and get a force plate tests with us today!