The OptoSource Blog

For serious athletes and competitors, achieving optimal performance is essential.  There are four performance assessment tools that can help an athlete reach their maximum potential.  Each tool brings a necessary element into analyzing and evaluating performance and allowing athletes, trainers, doctors, and other professionals to customize the most beneficial training program for individual athletes.  It can also aid in identifying weaknesses or deficiencies, and what needs to be done to correct them.

Have you ever felt you were getting sick and ran to the medicine cabinet to take all of those remedies you (sort-of) believe in? Miracle workers such as Echinacea? Vitamin C and Zinc? Airborne? Soup and soda? The point is, you know your body enough to take some preventative measures to keep yourself from getting to that bed-ridden state. Now if only your sinuses were equipped with Google Analytics, you could have had a little red flag delivered to your inbox with some special instructions on beating that cold before it ever has a chance.

OptoSource is showing patients that they don't have to live with many simple health problems associated with gait asymmetry.  Our gait, or the way we walk, is measured in phases that define the stride lengths, support times, and the load we bear in each step. Inefficiencies or asymmetries in gait are known to affect other aspects of the body, but what is remarkable is that almost any injury imaginable will effect our gait. Common issues with the lower body can be fixed, treated or facilitated with improved footwear. OptoSource has been working with ALINE Systems, a semi-custom insole manufacturer that has developed an adaptable orthopedic insert for almost any piece of footwear. ALINE Systems, for most people, improves symmetry, foot neutrality, and support in the fit of every-day casuals to sports specific footwear such as golf cleats and ski boots. Using ALINE Systems unique application for quick, easy, and effective manipulation of the foot with real-time objective gait analysis feedback, we are seeing almost unanimous improvements in gait performance. Finally, our 3 ways of improving gait performance using ALINE Systems.

It's a long one! But you can watch the interview in sections if you go to our YouTube page. Listen to Art Horne, the Director of Sports Performance at Northeastern University, and Dan Boothby, the programs head Strength and Conditioning coach discuss what they are doing to break down the walls between sports performance and sports medicine with the athletic program at the university.