Year end physical tests are great for tracking athletes’ progress
We just finished up our 2017 year-end physical testing, and I have to say that we at the Alberta Sport Development Centre (ASDC) at Medicine Hat College have a lot of great athletes. We do physical testing each year to measure improvements in strength, power, and endurance, but we also do the physical tests to measure improvements in quality of movement.
The athletes performed tests such as vertical jump, standing long jump, push-ups, pull-ups, and a lateral agility test. For the most part, the athletes tested much better than they did at the beginning of our Athlete Enhancement Program (AEP). Our AEP runs from September 1 through May 31 each year, so the athletes are currently 4 months into the program.
I mentioned earlier that we also use our tests to monitor quality of movement. This is far more important for an emerging athlete (13 – 18 years of age) to master than for them to lift a significant amount of weight. We at the ASDC make it our goal to have each athlete move properly from the time they enter our program till the time that they leave. One of the easiest measures of this is to see an athlete perform a squat. Watching what an athlete’s hips and knees do during the course of a squat will tell you a lot about the deficiencies present in the body.
During our vertical jump testing, we monitor how the athlete squats prior to jumping and also how the athlete explodes out of the squat. The athletes in our program who have been attending regularly and working on their movement patterns performed great!
One athlete in particular who I will mention is Quintin Unreiner. Quintin is a hockey player for the Bantam AAA SEAC Tigers here in Medicine Hat. Quintin works very hard on a daily basis to ensure that he is moving the way that he should, whether it be in the weight room or on the ice. Quintin did not test the highest in regards to performance in all of the tests, but his movement patterns were probably the best. Don’t get me wrong, Quintin was top 3 in regards to performance in all of the tests, but it was his movement that really shone through. Quintin’s core stability, posture, and fluency of movement are something to behold.
The ability to move properly is the key to future success. I have worked as a strength & conditioning coach at the Canadian university level and in the NCAA in the United States, and I can tell you that it is the athletes who show up in their first year with proper movement mechanics who typically have the most success. This is not because they are necessarily the best athletes on the team, but because they have the greatest opportunity to have longevity in sport and stay away from injury.
Athletes like Quintin are setting themselves up for a long athletic career by focusing on the basics now so that they can accomplish great things in the future!
Cory Coehoorn is the coordinator of the Alberta Sport Development Centre at Medicine Hat College. He would love to chat with you and answer any questions that you may have regarding their programs and services. He can be reached via email at ccoehoorn@mhc.ab.ca or via phone at 403-504-3547.