If you’ve never had a biomechanical assessment before, there are five sure signs that now might be the time.
But before we look at those signs, let’s explore what a biomechanical assessment is and why it can help make treatments like physiotherapy or osteopathy even more effective.
What is a biomechanical assessment?
A biochemical assessment is a detailed analysis of how your body moves and functions. It looks at everything from muscle strength and joint range of movement to how to sit, stand or walk.
It’s particularly exciting because it uses advanced technologies such as video analysis with high-speed cameras to capture and assess your movements in detail, force plates to understand how you distribute pressure and balance, and motion capture systems to capture and track complex movements in 3D.
Together, these technologies create a comprehensive look beneath your skin to your musculoskeletal function – a kind of super vision for physiotherapists!
Because a biomechanical assessment is so thorough, it can help to prevent injuries by correcting faulty movement patterns before they cause harm. It can also help us to understand the root causes of pain, thereby creating truly targeted treatments or exercises for the best outcomes.
If you’re an athlete – amateur or professional – having a biomechanical assessment can help you identify the best way to move for your sport or activity, stepping your performance up another level.
What are the 5 most common signs that you need a biomechanical assessment?
In our experience, a biomechanical assessment is beneficial if you’re experiencing one or more of the issues below:
1. You’re feeling chronic pain
If you’re experiencing ongoing pain in your knees, lower back, hips, or other joints that doesn’t seem to improve with rest or traditional treatment, a biomechanical assessment can help identify underlying issues such as improper alignment or muscle imbalances.
This information then enables a physiotherapist, osteopath or even a surgeon to have a much clearer understanding of the problem and how to treat it.
2. You’re vulnerable to the same injury – and it happens a lot
Do you keep experiencing the same injury time and again? Recurring issues such as ankle sprains, shin splints, or tendonitis often occur because of underlying problems with how your body moves and functions.
If you keep getting runner’s knee, for example, despite changing shoes and running surfaces, a biomechanical assessment can reveal problems in your gait or posture that need addressing.
3. You have poor posture
Do you tend to slouch? Are you worried that your shoulders are starting to look rounded or that your balance is off when you stand or walk?
Again, these are telltale signs of biomechanical problems.
An assessment can pinpoint the specific areas of concern. Using this knowledge, a physiotherapist, for example, can then help you put measures in place to correct your posture.
4. Your athletic performance has taken a nosedive
Have you noticed that your running times have slowed down or that you don’t feel as strong or agile as you did in the past?
Again, a biomechanical assessment can help you get to the root cause and uncover any movement patterns that could be hampering your performance.
5. Every day activities are starting to feel uncomfortable
Are you starting to feel stiffness, pain or discomfort when doing everyday activities such as walking, climbing the stairs, or even sitting for long periods?
A biomechanical assessment can help you understand why and access the right treatment to make life more comfortable.
Here’s an example – if you experience hip pain when walking your dog or lower back pain when sitting at your desk, it could be due to problems with your gait or muscle imbalances.
What can you expect during a biomechanical assessment?
As with any treatment to explore and treat musculoskeletal aches and pains, a biomechanical assessment begins with a full review of your medical history, including any recurring issues you’re struggling with, such as injuries, chronic pain, or balance problems.
The assessment will look at how your body aligns and functions when you’re laying down, sitting, or standing still (your static posture) and how it works when you’re active (your dynamic posture). If you do a particular sport or have problems with a specific activity, the assessment may focus more on this.
During the assessment, your physiotherapist will also want to look at your walking and running patterns to check whether there are any irregularities. You might also be asked to squat, lift, bend, or reach – if this is something you’re able to do – to identify any problems with these movements.
A biomechanical assessment also measures the range of motion for each of your joints, as well as your muscle strength and flexibility. This can help to flag up areas of tightness or weakness that could be improved with exercise and other approaches.
Following a biomechanical assessment, you will typically receive a full written and verbal report of the findings, including a specialist physiotherapist opinion – this is certainly something that we include in this service at Physio Box.
A new level of understanding about how your body works
Professionals such as physiotherapists and osteopaths have extensive knowledge of how the body works. However, some imbalances and problems are invisible to the human eye. In these cases, issues may need to become more extreme and disruptive before they can be spotted with a visual assessment alone.
Naturally, you don’t want to wait for things to get worse!
Having a biomechanical analysis can provide an extra layer of information about what’s happening to your muscles, tendons, and bones. This is fantastic for creating a precise and effective treatment plan for you as an individual – and for getting on top of problems before they become even more disruptive.
