What is performance testing?

Performance testing is an objective measurement of how your body actually produces force — strength, power, and the differences between your left and right sides — recorded properly rather than estimated by eye or by hand.

The two most common reasons people book:

Return to sport. After injury or surgery, the decision to go back is usually made on time elapsed, symptoms and feel. That's a poor basis for it — strength deficits of 20–30% routinely sit hidden in a limb that feels fine, and returning with one substantially raises the risk of doing it again. Measured data makes that decision defensible.

Performance baseline. You don't have to be injured. Knowing your strength profile, where you're asymmetrical and how you produce force gives you something to train against and re-test later. Most athletes have never had this done.

What the testing involves

A single session covering:

• Isometric strength testing — knee extension and flexion, hip abduction and adduction, calf, and upper limb where relevant, measured with clinical-grade dynamometry and normalised to body mass

• Limb symmetry — quantified rather than estimated, and interpreted properly against your absolute strength rather than in isolation

• Jump and hop testing — countermovement jump, single-leg hop, triple hop and crossover hop, capturing the elastic and reactive qualities strength testing can't

• Movement quality — single-leg squat, landing, deceleration and change of direction, assessed and filmed

• Psychological readiness screening where returning from significant injury, because confidence predicts successful return as strongly as most physical measures