by Sasha Kolbeck, MPT, DPT, OCS, COMT PT at MAC Physical Therapist Whether you are working to excel at your sport, decrease injury risk, or are elderly and trying to prevent a fall and maintain your daily activities, your strength, power, and rate of force development are key elements to be addressed. Rate of force development is the speed at which you can generate force, or explosive strength, and is important for power. Injuries and falls occur at a quick speed, and everyone needs strength—but also explosive and rapid strength—to recover. As people age, muscle mass decreases, which leads to decreased strength, power, and force. That, in turn, leads to decreased performance in sports as well as slower walking speed and an increase in time needed to recover from a slip, trip, or loss of balance. When you are fatigued, it takes longer to generate force, leading to less margin of error and increased injury risk. After an injury, the rate of developing force does not automatically return without work. Even then, it can take 12 or more months to several years to recover. Training to address rate of force development involves completing an exercise as quick and fast as possible. For the general person, it could include resistance training such as squat or leg press machine, step up, ballistic training, Olympic weightlifting, plyometrics, balance training, and sit-to-stand transfer. For the trained athlete, resistance and ballistic training have been shown to be most beneficial. Although rate of force development is important for power, and those terms are mistakenly used interchangeably, they are not one and the same. Rate of force development is measured with an instrumented tool such as the BodiTrak pressure mat used in physical therapy at PT at MAC. Power is measured more grossly, with jump height, sprint speed, cycling, weightlifting, golf swing, or in the elderly population, walking speed and getting up from a chair. Examples of patients who benefit from BodiTrak testing and training include lower extremity post-operative procedures such as Total Knee Replacement, Total Hip Replacement or Ankle Replacement, and hip, knee, and ankle arthroscopies, and fractures. Data informs us if the patient is offloading, altering weight distribution through the feet, needing increased time to stabilize, and prolonged weight bear. BodiTrak can help add to the visual analysis of balance and squats. Adding training for rate of force development is thought to increase muscle-tendon stiffness, increased muscle force production, and increased neural drive. This can increase sprint speed or jump height, load accommodation, and for the elderly, ability with stairs and walking speed, while decreasing risk of falling. If you are interested in adding this to your exercise program, talk with one of MAC’s personal trainers. If you have any questions, or are injured, contact Physical Therapy at MAC at 503-272-8785 or click to request appointment. |
ArchivesCategories |
Proudly powered by Weebly