Why Every Athlete Should Get Tested — Preseason, In-Season, & Postseason

If you only ever see your physical therapist or performance coach after something goes wrong, you're missing the most valuable window we have: the chance to catch problems before they become injuries. That's where objective testing tools like VALD force plates and handheld dynamometry (HHD) come in. They turn "I think my left leg feels weaker" into a number we can track, trend, and act on.

Here's why this kind of testing belongs in every athlete's season — not just their rehab.

What These Tools Actually Measure

Force plates capture what your body does when it hits the ground — literally. During a countermovement jump (CMJ), a force plate measures things like jump height, reactive strength index modified (RSImod), rate of force development (RFD), and side-to-side asymmetries in braking and propulsive force. An isometric mid-thigh pull (IMTP) tells us how much force you can produce against an immovable load, which correlates closely with sprinting, jumping, and change-of-direction ability.

Handheld dynamometry gets more specific. It measures the force a single muscle group can produce — quad strength, hamstring strength, the ratio between the two (H:Q ratio), and how one limb compares to the other (limb symmetry index, or LSI). For anyone who's had an ACL reconstruction, hamstring strain, or shoulder injury, this is the data that tells us whether a limb is truly ready to be loaded again, not just whether it "feels fine."

Together, these tools replace guesswork with numbers you can compare over time.

Why Preseason Testing Matters

Preseason testing gives us a baseline — what does this athlete look like when healthy, rested, and not currently managing an injury? Without that baseline, every future test is just a guess about what "normal" should be.

Preseason numbers also flag risk before it becomes a problem. An asymmetry of 15% or more between limbs on a CMJ, a low RSImod, or a quad LSI below established return-to-sport thresholds can all be signs of unresolved deficits from a prior injury — even one from a year or two ago that "healed fine." Addressing that in July is a lot cheaper than addressing it in October, mid-season, after it's already caused compensation patterns elsewhere.

Why In-Season Testing Matters

Fatigue and load accumulate over a season in ways that are hard to feel day-to-day. In-season testing — even brief, low-burden checks — lets us catch:

• Declining RFD or RSImod trends that suggest under-recovery or overreaching

• Asymmetries that emerge or worsen as an athlete manages a nagging issue quietly, without telling anyone

• Strength drops after a return from a minor tweak, before that athlete is cleared to full load

This is also where in-season testing protects athletes from themselves. Most competitive athletes will downplay pain or stiffness because they don't want to sit out. Objective data doesn't negotiate — if the numbers are down, we know to look closer, regardless of what the athlete reports.

Why Postseason Testing Matters

Postseason is where we find out what the season actually cost. Chronic asymmetries, strength deficits, and reduced reactive strength often show up clearly once competition demands are removed and fatigue has a chance to surface. This is the ideal window to:

• Identify deficits that built up gradually and went unaddressed because performance masked them

• Set concrete, measurable goals for the off-season strength block

• Compare directly back to preseason numbers to see what actually changed over the year

Postseason testing turns the off-season from "general strength work" into a targeted plan built around what an individual athlete's data actually shows.

The Bigger Picture: Testing as a Return-to-Sport Framework

For athletes coming back from injury — ACL reconstruction, hamstring strain, shoulder instability — testing isn't optional; it's the standard of care. A five-phase RTS battery using force plates and HHD gives a much clearer answer to "am I ready?" than time-based criteria alone ("it's been 9 months") ever could. LSI thresholds, H:Q ratios, and jump asymmetry benchmarks are all part of a body of return-to-sport literature built specifically because subjective readiness and true tissue readiness often don't match up.

But you don't need to be injured to benefit from this framework. Testing preseason, in-season, and postseason gives every athlete — not just those in rehab — a continuous, objective picture of how their body is holding up to the demands of their sport.

The Bottom Line

Numbers don't replace clinical judgment, and they don't replace how an athlete feels. But they catch what feel alone often misses — and they let us act early instead of reactively. If your team, gym, or clinic has access to force plate and dynamometer testing, don't save it for after an injury. Use it as a checkpoint three times a year, and let the data tell you what your training should focus on next.