Catapult User Stories: Shireen Mansoori, Seattle Sports Institute
Shireen Mansoori was first introduced to Catapult when she met David Tenney and Dawn Scott in 2009 while working as a physiotherapist at MVP Physical Therapy at Starfire Sports Complex in Seattle.
Working on unique return to play protocols using a variety of technologies and data points, Shireen relies on IMA to pull everything together.
“Catapult’s IMA clock maps have become an invaluable tool throughout my rehabilitation process. The maps allow me to objectively identify asymmetries in movement at low, medium, and high intensities moving in various directions. My process is to identify the asymmetries and implement certain physiotherapy techniques to help the athlete overcome their pathomechanics.”
While generally using Catapult post-injury, Shireen understands the importance of the data as an injury mitigation tool, as well as a way to avoid re-injury.
“Catapult objectively measures the training volume and intensity of my athletes throughout their entire rehabilitation process. Combining this data with my training in physiotherapy and biomechanics is the second step.
“By analyzing both the way the athlete moves, as well as the training volume and intensity, we provide what we believe to be an algorithm for minimizing the risk of injury or re-injury at Seattle Sports Institute & Physical Therapy (SSI). My rehabilitation process is broken down into phases that make up a pyramid, with return to competition at the top of the pyramid.
“During sport- and position-specific tactical training, our athletes must produce data similar to their historical data. Additionally, the quantity of the athlete’s load is coupled with the quality of the athlete’s movement, where each athlete must be asymptotic and demonstrate no major asymmetries outside our established normative values.”
And what have the results been for her pyramid process?
“Simple – the rate of re-injury in our high-performance athletes at SSI has significantly reduced when returning athletes to their team setting.”
An orthopedic specialist isn’t a typical user of Catapult for elite athletes, so why did Shireen seek out its implementation?
“In physiotherapy, I believe the gold standard for running analysis has been 3-D Motion Capture, where we can collect real-time data in a laboratory setting. Whether the athlete will move identically on the court or field is uncertain. Therefore, Catapult provides a tool to collect real-time data during practice and match play. More importantly, the athlete’s compliance of wearing only one sensor is usually high, and the product is both reliable and valid in many of its metrics when compared to the gold standard.
“Early on in the athlete’s rehabilitation process, I have found value in combining Catapult with other technologies that can track both angular velocity and force distribution of each limb. Additionally, incorporating a daily wellness questionnaire and a session rate of perceived exertion provides imperative insight throughout our rehabilitation process for each athlete at SSI.”