Dr. Jeff Shilt is an orthopedic surgeon at Texas Children’s Hospital in The Woodlands and a sports medicine liaison for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. He oversees the Human Performance and Motion Analysis lab in The Woodlands, which has helped improve the performance of four Olympians and several Paralympians.
“What that allows us to do is be able to collect data that we like to talk about, as in terms of marginal gains. So, marginal gains or little, small gains you can add to performance or to prevent illness that if you collect all of those small, marginal gains can result in a big impact,” Dr. Shilt said. “Then when we’re talking about athletes who are performing at the highest level, you know, sometimes, you know, one, two, 3% change in the performance is the difference between first and 10th place.”
Patients like Melanie Luna had sensors places all over her body for her analysis. By squatting and bending with the sensors on, the cameras are analyzing her moves and the floor below her is measuring the pressure she’s putting down.
Almost immediately, what the eye cannot see, is revealed through the technology. Her left leg lights up red, indicating Luna is not putting as much weight on that leg. The same leg she’s recently overcome an injury.
“I tore my ACL and my meniscus,” Luna said.
Luna unfortunately has to sit out her senior year of high school soccer but she’s going to the lab to overcome her injury and hopefully play in college.
“I’m doing this to get better,” she said, “I want to play for college.”
This technology will help reveal her imbalances and weaknesses that she needs to improve her form and avoid future injuries.
“If your foot lands in a specific pattern that it can increase the risk of, you know, stress fractures or overuse injuries,” Dr. Shilt explained. “We can identify an area that is responsible for a decrease in performance.”
“After my injury, I didn’t really, I didn’t ever think that I was going to be able to get up again or like run how I used to run or play how I used to play,” Luna confessed.
Dr. Shilt confirmed the lab has been able to fine tune Paris Olympic athletes as well as Paralympic athletes.
“Because they use prostheses, because they use all these other devices to help them compete, we can tune those differently and so the potential for impacting their performance is even higher,” Dr. Shilt said.