At Xdrona we do an “In-Depth physical fitness & health analysis for injury-free life and achieving peak performance in sports”.
So, why do we need a Physical Fitness Assessment?
The significant advantage you get from these physical assessment tests is not just that one gets to know about the fitness level or physical capability of the person rather you also get to know about the discrepancies in the posture which might have arisen due to lifestyle. One might be undergoing regular fitness but if they are staying in a bad posture for rest of the day then it may lead to certain functional or musculoskeletal discrepancies. You can predict several chronic illnesses which one might suffer down the line and it’s very important not just for old people or middle-aged people, it is extremely important for young kids because bad posture or overusing certain muscle groups might lead to inadequate growth of other muscle groups. It’s going to affect their growth and development and if that damage is not taken care of in time then it will affect the rest of life. In many of these cases, the impact is irreversible and these kids will end up having chronic issues such as lower back pain, regular ankle sprains, droopy shoulders, or knee problems, and in cases of athletes, they would not be able to achieve peak performance even after working really hard.
So, the primary reason would have been that these kids were never taught to stay in a better posture or they were never taught or told about the significance of certain exercises and there was no facility to check and assess them on a timely basis and give them objective feedback about their Musculoskeletal fitness. So, the tests if done on a regular basis will help us understand whether the young kid’s or young athlete’s growth is happening in a correct manner. This, however, not just applies to young kids but applies to all humanoids. We are like human android machines with skeletal systems.
Let’s compare ourselves with other machines. For example, if we are in a car there are four wheels and if one wheel is overworking then you end up damaging not only that wheel but others as well and it affects the performance of the vehicle as a whole. So, there needs to be some kind of balance so that all the wheels work in a synchronized manner. Take the example of sprinters. While running they do not just move their legs, but they are also taking the help of the arms, shoulders, and the whole upper body. A good sprint is a combination of several joints & muscles from the bottom to the top of the body working together in perfect harmony. The problem these days is that the kids only tend to play one sport and try to specialize in it at an early age. So, a kid ends up playing only one sport early on in his or her life. This way the kid may get fit and a single sport might help them develop certain muscle groups but the rest of the muscle groups are completely ignored. For example, it is seen in footballers who have specialized early, their lower bodies are much stronger than upper body and core strength and shoulder strength is not there and that’s why they tend to fall most of the time while playing and they don’t know how to control themselves when they fall on the field. As a result, they end up hurting their shoulders, their neck, their head.
So, if you have some scientific method for physical assessment which tells you that a certain joint should have a particular level of mobility or another joint or muscle should have a particular level of range of motion or strength then you will come to know that overall growth of muscles is happening correctly. Strong muscles with a good range of motion pull your joints in the correct direction and it helps correct your posture which in turn helps to avoid injuries.
Another example of a bad posture leading to a health hazard is of a person who has a desk job. An average person most of the time sits in a bad posture and has a rounded shoulder while working. Due to this reason, they are not able to breathe properly because they are taking short breaths all the time as the position of their shoulders is not letting their lungs expand properly and that is leading to stress. If you don’t breathe properly you are not getting enough oxygen and it causes respiratory problems which leads to further metabolic problems. This can become a cause of high blood sugar, high cortisol levels. So physical stress leads to metabolic stress. And that changes your sugar level, your Insulin response. That affects mood swings, behavior, etc. So everything is connected. We think that physical problems and metabolic problems are different. But they are all internally connected; they affect each other. That is one more reason why regular physical health and fitness assessment is very important.
There is one problem that is faced by many top athletes and aspiring athletes alike. In their career as a sportsman, they go through a time where their performance stagnates and they stop growing as a player and an athlete. Skill-wise they might be top class but physical fitness-wise they stop growing. Here again, Musculoskeletal analysis will help them analyze their limitations at the granular level and help them improve themselves even though they think that they have already achieved their peak.
So, as you see, regular In-Depth physical fitness & health analysis is not only important for a fit and injury-free life but also to achieve peak performance in sports.
