Muscle Balance Assessment

What is it?

Our body is a finely tuned machine. In order to perform the highly skilled, accurate and powerful movements necessary for our jobs, sports and everyday activities we are relying on our muscles to work in perfect position and timing. Unfortunately, because of our jobs, sports and everyday activities we develop habits that upset the tuning of this process. Often we let one muscle get really strong while others waste away. Eventually the strong muscle ends up trying to do the job of the weak muscles and becomes sore in the process.

During a muscle balance assessment, your physiotherapist will test out the strength of various muscles to determine whether you are over- or under-using any of you muscles. Once the imbalances are identified, you can begin work on correcting them in order to get back into the things you want to be doing.

What are the benefits of having a Muscle Balance Assessment?

Muscle balance assessments are great for people who are suffering from an injury however they are also an excellent tool for injury prevention. By identifying imbalances and then eliminating them through appropriate exercises, you are less likely to over work a muscle when starting or getting back to an activity. For example, many elite athletes are using muscle imbalance screening to help them reduce the chances of getting injured going into the start of their sporting season.