Basics on Assessments

Anyone who visits a personal trainer will go through was are referred to as assessment tests. These tests, though they seem quite mundane and random and even out of place in the opinions of some, are how a personal trainer learns about your body and it's muscles. We use our muscles every day but we don't use them equally. This is no real fault if our own, it is simply how the human body works; when we walk we use our legs more verses a person in a wheelchair who would have better arm muscles from pushing their chair around. Through tests such as the one-legged squat assessment, pulling assessment, pushing assessment, the overhead squat assessment, and posture assessments, personal trainers can learn which muscles are overactive and which are underactive from the compensations your body will make when doing certain actions. This tells the trainer what muscles should be focused on during the training. These tests fall under the category if posture and movement assessments.

Another type of assessments are the performance assessments, during which the personal trainer tests a client's endurance, agility, stabilization, speed, neuromuscular control, as well as strength if lifting is an option for you. These are measured by the following basic tests: the push-up test, the Davies test, the shark skill test, and the bench press and squat assessment tests. These tests tend to be used more for athletic improvement rather than rehabilitation or direct injury recovery.