Creating An Assessment "Super Session"

For a long time, everyday health and fitness professionals have made assessment a small part of the overall consultation that they deliver to help their clients achieve their goals.

One of the problems with this is it has meant that:

• not enough time has been dedicated to objective testing

• not enough time has been dedicated to explaining results and educating the client on the plan

• opportunities have been missed to increase rebooking rates and charge appropriately for unique services

• training interventions have been incorrectly prescribed and based off assumption rather than evidence

At Strength By Numbers we advocate for the use of specific assessment sessions as part of the management plan of your clients to help them achieve their goals. We believe this is a crucial part of process as it helps to bridge the gap between initial care and the ongoing active involvement of the client, which is usually where self discharge may occur.

Using the AxIT System, one can easily create a specific assessment session to perform a needs analysis of the client you are working with. Often this may involve combining other objective assessments that you may already use with your AxIT System to perform a comprehensive examination.

This chart, based on work by Reiman and Manske in 2009 illustrates the principles of Functional Performance Testing. This concept was initially developed to understand the core requirements for athletes to perform at a high level. Equally this idea can be used to perform a needs analysis for lower functioning clients to identify what may be limiting them from achieving their movement goals.

When applying the principles of Functional Performance Testing in the application of a comprehensive assessment session one can imagine testing for the lower limb could be:

• Functional Movement Patterns

  • Squat analysis on Stomp-IT

  • Lunge analysis on Stomp-IT

• Balance and proprioception

  • Balance Assessment on Stomp-IT

  • Star Excursion Balance Test

• Muscle and joint flexibility

  • Weight bearing lunge test

  • Straight leg raise

  • Hip internal/external rotation

• Muscle Strength/Power

  • Isometric Calf Raise on Stomp-IT

  • Isometric Knee Flexion/Extension with Pull-IT

  • Isometric Hip Abduction

• Muscle Endurance

  • Wall Sit for time

• Muscle Power

  • Drop Jump on Stomp-IT

  • Single leg hop for distance

Additionally in more athletic clients you may perform.

• Speed and Agility

  • Agility T-Test for time

• Aerobic and Anaerobic Conditioning

  • 3km time trial for time

An assessment like this may take 1 hour to perform so it is important that you allocate an appropriate amount of time to testing, and charge appropriately.

This then allows the practitioner to identify where deficiencies or discrepancies may be found and should be then followed up with an exercise programming session to address whatever is found.

Following the prescription of exercises it should be remembered that this is only as useful as the improvement that can be demonstrated with a reassessment of the key findings, usually to be performed at a date 4-6 weeks later.

By following this process AxIT users will be able to:

• Engage their clients better

• Identify the key areas that need to be improved to help their clients achieve their goals

• Better prescribe exercises

• Keep clients involved in the active exercise based process

• Further engage their clients and improve their confidence by showing improvement in their objective assessment results