If you’ve ever watched people walking while sitting at an airport, you’re amazed at the diversity of motion. Some limping, some bent forward, some tipping to one side, some taking baby steps, and every now and then, someone looks normal. Many have braces, some have canes, but everyone is totally unique.

Walking is a combination of movements that allows a person to propel themselves forward. In order to do that, one has to recruit many body parts to act in unison for any success at all. Today’s biomechanics specialists, running store workers and therapists attempt to do gait analysis to determine what’s not working correctly.

Weak “this” and overworking “that” is usually the conclusion. Work on your flexibility and strengthen certain muscles is usually the recommendation. Unfortunately, all of these recommendations are insignificant at best and outright wrong at worst. Let me explain.

When a gait analysis is done, the evaluation of an individual in motion, generally walking or running and evaluated from behind, the assumption is that all people are symmetrical. Left and right are perfectly balanced. Nothing could be further from the truth. No one is symmetrical. Research has shown all people have mild to severe asymmetries in their musculoskeletal systems, abnormalities that no one in our healthcare system ever looks for using the appropriate technology. So, with these asymmetries (mild to severe), gait analyses are still done in an effort to identify imbalances and reduce injuries. Unfortunately, they fail hugely in their effort because they don’t identify the true asymmetry(s).

The conclusions that are drawn on gait analyses are actually the results of the adaptation of the musculoskeletal system to the underlying biomechanical faults that no one has ever found. Some muscles restrict more compared to their counterparts due to the imbalance in weight distribution and I describe gait analyses as a bag of biomechanical sins in motion. It is totally impossible to draw meaningful conclusions if a gait analysis is done prior to having a Structural Fingerprint® Exam performed and making corrections to these imbalances.

Therefore, without a static biomechanical exam (and The Structural Fingerprint® Exam is the only one available today), it is impossible to assess gait imbalances. And static biomechanical evaluations are the only way to truly identify these imbalances.

The word Analytics is the most economically valuable word in sports today. The New York Mets have 14 people on their payroll with the word analytics in their job title. With the average Major League Baseball salary at $4.41 Million Dollars this year, you would think the most important “Analytics” category would be biomechanical. If not biomechanical, then maybe Orthopedic Analytics. One of the two should be on top.

But it’s not.

If it was at the top of their list, the domain names biomechanicalanalytics.com or orthopedicanalytics.com would not have been available when I did my search. The phrase Biomechanical Analytics would not have been available to trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office when I applied for it.

And, when you google Biomechanical Analytics, you would never think you’d find……..me.

What you’ll find is…………

Why is it that I’m at the top of this topic when there is so much money in the field of sports analytics? It’s because the entire industry is unaware of the fact that every human is Crooked Man.            

We’ve done the research and we have the data, and we’ve proven that every human being is blessed (or cursed) with biomechanical imbalances, or asymmetries. It all starts with the feet, then the alignment of the knees, then leg length, then centers of gravity of the pelvis, and on and on from there. The technology is available today to learn each person’s (athlete’s) biomechanical faults, but that’s not what the 14 jobs with the New York Mets do. That’s not what the orthopedic or physical therapy departments do. Their jobs are primarily reactive once a player is hurt.

In 2017, I had a unique experience with a high school soccer player. We scanned his feet, put him in orthotics, and over the next 8 months he developed a stress fracture in the front pelvic crest. His pain worsened over that time and we took an x-ray to see why he was complaining. Not only did he have a stress fracture, but his femoral head height difference (height of his hips) worsened with orthotics in his shoes. No one had ever suggested this was a possibility.

Over the next 4 years, I collected data on 351 patients and published the results in a medical peer reviewed journal. In short, we learned not only that every human has biomechanical imbalances, but there are 5 distinct biomechanically flawed patterns, and every human is one of the 5.

The Maggs’ Leg Length Test™ will tell which pattern a person is, and proactive measures can then be taken to improve the balance, alignment and weight distribution, prior to the player ever taking the field, court or entering the weight room.

In conclusion, I believe I deserve the top spot when googling Biomechanical Analytics, I just think those spending millions and billions should want to be there.