Performance testing can be used to assess functional assessment. Sometimes there is not anything structurally or physiologically wrong with your body, but the way it is being used is the problem. For example, due to a relative strength deficit in your back muscles when you bend or twist, your abdominals are doing too much of the work. As a result of this imbalance, there is unnecessary torque on your spine, and pain may occur.

Performance testing uses various types of equipment to assess how you function. For your spine, you may be asked to sit in a device that will stabilize your pelvis (much like a seat belt holds you in your car seat), and then under varying amounts of resistance you will be asked to move back and forth or from side to side. A computer will analyze the quality of your movement, how consistent you are, and look for portions of your motion that have a glitch in it.

Thinking about the words health, sports and fitness creates images of exercise, athletics and motion. Along with those images, personal beliefs concerning ability, fear and competition impact physical performance. While some of these conditions cannot be changed, acquiring skills that emphasize the present moment and make use of natural patterns of motion can enhance capability.

Remarkable, professional, competitive, aggressive, frustrated, serious, recreational, middle-aged, uncoordinated and challenged — all are adjectives that depict different kinds of athletes. All of these athletes, however, on some level share the desire to be part of motion-based activity. It is desire, and the results of past emotional experiences, that motivate people to improve their outcomes.

Electromyography (EMG) and Nerve Conduction Velocity (NCV) studies are ordered to evaluate for injury or disease of muscle, nerve roots, and peripheral nerves. They test the condition of the nerves from the spine, face, and extremities, including the foot and hand. These studies are normally done together and are usually performed as a workup for complaints of pain, weakness, numbness, or tingling.

Unlike radiographic or imaging tests that evaluate structure, such as an X-ray or MRI, electrodiagnostic studies assess physiology or biochemical function. Think of a telephone wire that has static on it. A photograph of the phone would miss the problem entirely, but with a volt-ohm meter a technician could determine if there was a bad connection or wire in the phone itself, the phone line, or at the telephone pole.