Biomechanical Assessment
What is a Biomechanical Assessment?
A biomechanical assessment is an analysis of how your whole body moves. Understanding the biomechanics of your movement can have an influential role in injury prevention, addressing current injuries, and performance enhancement. Also known as a gait analysis, a biomechanical assessment will analyse how all movements may contribute to pain levels or dysfunction.
How can a biomechanical assessment help me?
People often book a Biomechanical Assessment & Gait Analysis because they have problems with their feet. And these problems get in the way of their day-to-day activities. It can also be useful for knee and hip injuries, leg length discrepancies, and overuse injuries.
Foot pain, stiffness, and aching are relatively common problems. Injuries such as ITB syndrome, runner’s knee, Achilles tendinopathy or plantar fasciitis can be caused by your biomechanics. Changing your foot strike, what position you hold your hips in or the angle of your knee can influence how much pressure goes through different parts of your body. For example, if you change from a heel striker to a forefoot striker, it will considerably increase the load through your calf muscle but reduce the load through your knee. This may be beneficial for someone suffering from knee pain.
Different types of Biomechanical Assessment
- Static Assessment – This type of examination features a non-weight-bearing anatomical assessment. This allows your therapist to assess the quality and range of motion testing and muscle strength testing. A Physiotherapist will closely assess your alignment and posture.
- Dynamic assessment – This type of examination uses running gait and walking gait assessment. All with the help of the state-of-the-art foot pressure plate for dynamic foot scanning and video gait analysis technology. During the examination, the Physiotherapist might ask you to use the treadmill. The assessment could determine atypical/symmetrical movements that led to the injury.
Biomechanical Assessments at Flawless Physio
Like any form of consultation, we take a detailed history of your symptoms to allow us to gain a thorough understanding of how we can help you. Slow-motion video capture will analyze your gait. We will look at your strength, flexibility, and mobility. We may provide advice on how to alter walking or running motion. After your appointment, you will receive a strengthening and/or mobility program. You will receive videos of all of your exercises and a synopsis of our findings.
We offer advice on footwear recommendations, and if required, we can prescribe custom orthotics. If you want to learn more about what type of custom orthotics we make, please follow this link.
After a period of 3-4 weeks, we will have a follow-up to progress your exercises. Re-video you moving to make sure you are maintaining the changes that we made in the clinic on your first appointment.
Running Gait Analysis
We are specialists in all forms of Gait Analysis. As a sports specialist clinic, the majority of the patients we see vary from recreational up to professional. We carry out detailed video running gait analysis. We discuss all things running, including cadence, advice on footwear, training plans, and strength exercises for runners.
We pride ourselves on our thorough running gait analysis and the specificities of our tailored running programs. We see runners for running gait analysis when they have injuries and are pain-free to help with their performance and reduce their risk of injury.
Is it worth getting a Running Gait Analysis?
A running gait analysis can be fundamental if you are new to running. It can help you understand if you are over-striding, if your cadence is optional, and what footwear is best for you. Some people worry that they have run a certain way all their life, so it should be really hard to change their running style. This is not the case, and we can improve your running immediately in the clinic and then discuss methods to maintain this.
We always suggest a 6-week follow-up to ensure you maintain your improved running gait. We have links with local running stores so that we are constantly up to date with the latest running shoe technology and offer partnership discounts.
How Much Does a Biomechanical Assessment Cost?
The Biomechanical Assessment costs £165. A standard biomechanical assessment takes approximately 45- 60 minutes.
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