The AxIT – Stop Guessing. Start Measuring.
We are so excited to share our newest piece of equipment with you. The AxIT by Strength by Numbers.
The AxIT system is a group of electronic devices that are able to accurately measure the forces we can produce in different positions. This means that rather than guessing whether the force your shoulder/ankle/knee/etc. can produce is even on both sides, we can accurately measure and make a comparison that can be tracked and graphed over time.
In addition to being able to compare how much force you can generate on your left vs right sides, the AxIT system also lets us quickly compare your test results to expected population norms. Meaning that we can check your test results against research developed data that shows what someone of your age and gender should be able to achieve. Which allows us to not only rehab your issue, but guide physical improvement towards minimising the risk of injury into the future.
Another benefit of the system is that in addition to accurately measuring how much force you can produce, it will also measure other aspects of your physical performance. Aspects such as ‘rate of force development’ which tells us how quickly you can produce that force – or how powerful you are. In the case of the force decks we can also measure how long you spend on the ground between jumps, hops or in a run stride (ground contact time), and how high you can jump or hop.
Why we love using the AxIT System
Using the AxIT system during your appointments can be a quick and accurate way to assess if there’s a weakness (either from pain or an injury), on one side of your body vs the other. This will then allow us to monitor your progress though rehab and recovery, as well as guide your rehab programs to target exactly what we need to.
In addition to using the AxIT system for quick comparisons, we also use it as an accurate way to comprehensively assess patients through post-surgical rehab. This it particularly helpful when trying to rehab individuals looking to perform well in their chosen activity or sport. ACL reconstruction and shoulder surgery are two of the main issues that fall into this category, and by using the AxIT system we can develop a comprehensive physical profile of the patient. We can then use this profile to more effectively create a complete performance program to guide from rehab and recovery to performance and mitigating injury risk.
Though you don’t need to have and injury or be in recovery to come in for a session of AxIT testing. As we also use it as a method of pre-screening athletes. Although there are never any guarantees in life, and injuries are a part of sport and athletic performance, there are certain performance aspects that are associated with a higher risk of injury. So a pre-screening session will allow us to determine if there are any areas of a patient/athletes performance that should be targeted for improvement to reduce the risk of injury and improve athletic ability.
