Movement assessment

Overview

More formally known as a movement screening, a detailed assessment on your current movement is a key first step in diagnosing issues. This is often dismissed as a waste of time by some; and done incorrectly that may be true. But a comprehensive assessment – one that  captures joint articulation, motor patterns, and locomotion movement – is invaluable.

Assessment

A comprehensive assessment can be done by yourself with a phone and tripod (or propped up against a water bottle, etc). Though if you can get a trainer, partner or friend to assist on the table tests, that would be more effective.

Regardless, the categories to assess would be:

  • Table tests
  • Mobility
  • Isometrics
  • Hypertrophy and Strength
  • Locomotion

Table tests

The point is identifying your degrees of internal and external rotation for the hips and shoulders, as well as how well your spine moves in different planes.

  • Hip IR and ER in a lying position
  • Shoulder IR and ER in a lying position
  • Spine segmentation in a standard cat cow, a leaning forward cat cow, and crouched down cat cow

Mobility

Joint circles allow for a more general assessment of each joint.

  • Neck circle
  • Spine circle
  • Shoulder circle (left and right)
  • Scapula circle
  • Elbow line with rotation
  • Wrist circle
  • Hip circle (left and right)
  • Knee line with rotation (left and right)
  • Ankle circle (left and right)
  • Toe movement (left and right)

Isometrics

Quadrupedal isometrics are used to assess mobility along the posterior chain as well as wrist and scapula control.

  • Bear
  • Crab

Hypertrophy/Strength

Here foundational resistance training movement patterns assess any muscular weaknesses and imbalances.

  • Squat: KB or Barbell Squat
  • Horizontal pull: Seated Cable Row or Inverted Row
  • Horizontal push: Push-up or DB Bench
  • Hinge: KB or Barbell RDL
  • Vertical pull: Lat Pulldown or Pull-up
  • Vertical push: Dip or DB Seated Press
  • Lunge: DB Lunge
  • Unilateral pull: 1-arm DB Row
  • Unilateral push: 1-arm DB Standing Press

Locomotion

The quadrupedal movements are used to assess any differences between the prior static movements and dynamically moving through space.

  • Bear
  • Monkey
  • Frogger
  • Crab