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Fast Twitch Saddle Brook incorporates technology to analyze each individual client in order to create a data-driven injury recovery plan with their team of athletic trainers and physical therapists.
What type of injuries do you see at Fast Twitch? Are they mostly sports related injuries or do you see people with work injuries or other type of injury?
Chris Tuttle: We get a good hybrid of both, actually. We do have a very large amount of athletes that come in, but for being a performance facility we actually do get a lot of general population clients that come in and really just want to create the best version of themselves possible.
I think they just differ, whereas a lot of the sports related injuries are more of a one-time, impact-driven injury, some sort of tear from one movement. Whereas more of the general population work injuries are things that happen over the course of time, a lot of the thoracic issues from being hunched over at a desk or with the text neck, we call it. And then the sports related injuries, you’re seeing a lot of knees, a lot of ACL coming back from that, a lot of labrum tears. They do differentiate, but I would say the volume is about the same. And just how you’re treating them is going to change just a little bit, based on where they need to get back to and how quickly.
What individual factors do you consider when developing an injury recovery program?
Chris Tuttle: I mean, that’s a great question. This human body, there’s no two identical human bodies or DNA in people, so everybody’s body is going to respond differently to the training. And I think for us, really getting a good understanding of their body, the way their body functions and the movements that they’re able to do, and then what caused it. And then really the lifestyle that they’re trying to get back to, or what their lifestyle was that may have caused this injury.
As we go through, we want to understand, again, where they came from, how their body moves and what their goals are. Do you want to just get back to living your normal life or do you want to take this and use this as a jump start to really improve the functionality of your body and how you want to do that?
We have three or four assessments that we run people through, some hands-on and some more data and technological driven. After those, we can get a really good understanding of the individual’s body and how it’s going to respond to the training. And then we’ll build out their plan specifically for that and tailor it to their goals. So, we can get them to where they want to be, because at the end of the day, that’s our main goal is to get people back to feeling healthy, feeling good and get them again, to wherever they want to be physically.
Could you please explain what is included in the Fast Twitch proprietary injury risk analysis?
Chris Tuttle: Of course. Yeah. So, we have people, when they come in, we’ll do a full body composition on them to, again, get their skeletal muscle mass, their body fat percentage, obviously their body weight, and height. Then we can see where it’s distributed whether it’s through their trunk, their limbs, making sure it’s evenly distributed.
Once we do that, we’ll run them through the Physimax assessment, which is through our phones. It’s partnered with a company called Physimax. It takes five minutes and, again, it gives us readings and finds deficiencies in their body with up to 99% accuracy. So, we can start to work towards those areas of deficiencies.
Once they’ve done that, we set up an initial evaluation with our physical therapist and he will get another hands-on evaluation and assessment of where they might have injuries or any deficiencies. And then we go into a regular movement analysis with one of our coaches that we can really check and see hip mobility, flexibility in the muscles and just the different movements within the training.
Then we take all of that information, we sit down with the physical therapists, the coaches and the client, and we will go over their goals and we’ll build out the program based off all of those assessments and all of that data that we’ve gathered. Then from there, we build out the best possible plan. Then we go through the whole plan together with the coaches and the physical therapists at the same time. They have two sets of eyes on you throughout your training session to really optimize your time in there and getting you back to feeling the best you possibly can.
How do athletes recovering from injuries benefit from your injury risk analysis?
Chris Tuttle: We are able to really see how close to a hundred percent they can get and where they are, instead of guessing. It’s a tough thing when you’re doing the scale of one to ten ratio of how you feel. They might tell you they’re feeling an eight, but that data’s showing you that their knee is actually a four. We’re going to be able to track that all along the way.
They may come in for a knee injury, but their left shoulder is all jacked up too. So, now we’re able to find that and work on both of those areas during the same session, allowing them to not have to come back to us after something happens again.
So, people are very surprised at what they see of where they’re actually having some small injuries they may not be too conscious about when they come in and run through our analysis, which I think is a huge thing moving forward. So, we can keep people on the field, at work, feeling good, and again, that’s our main goal.
When training healthy athletes at Fast Twitch, how is your proprietary injury risk analysis factored into their training program?
Chris Tuttle: Again, when it comes to the body, especially for athletes, as an athlete, you’re always told that you’re never going to feel and play at a hundred percent because your body is under wear and tear so much. So, they might feel good. They think they’re healthy, but we’ll come in and we’ll find areas that we need to work on. And we’ll take that into consideration because anybody can just go to the gym and do a strength program on their own, but they don’t know if they’re actually holding themselves back or hindering any other areas by just doing that training. So, if I can come in and find someone that has some weak glutes, which is causing them to valgus with their knees, without being able to see that with just your eyes, I mean, that’s a win for them because now we’re able to address that, strengthen it, so when they get on the field, they’re at a much lower risk of any type of ACL or knee injury from that.
And again, that’s things that people can’t feel. In some of the old school people, they may say, the eyes can tell everything, you don’t need the data, but we’ve found that, especially for athletes, you just can never tell how fatigued they are, where they’re hurting, because they don’t know because they’re just expected to feel that way. So, we make sure everyone that comes in, they run through this, so they’re training and they’re playing at the optimal level possible.
If you are interested in speaking with Chris Tuttle at Fast Twitch Saddle Brook please visit www.fasttwitch.com or call 201-490-8778 to schedule an appointment.
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