A Beginners Guide To Performance Testing At SRA
The first time most athletes or parents walk into SRA on a testing day, they pause.
There are force plates on the floor. Timing gates set up on the track. Athletes warming up, jumping, sprinting, lifting. It looks… serious.
p style=”text-align: center;”>And almost every time, someone asks:
“Is all this really necessary?”
It’s a fair question.
Because if you’ve grown up around junior sport, you’ve probably seen two extremes – kids pushed too hard, too early… or kids training without any real plan at all. At SRA, performance testing exists to avoid both of those outcomes.
Testing Isn’t About Seeing How Much an Athlete Can Handle
One of the biggest myths around performance testing is that it’s about pushing athletes to their limits. Max lifts. Max jumps. Max effort , Max everything.
That’s not what happens here.
In fact, most of our testing deliberately stops well before an athlete reaches their limit.
Why?
Because good coaching isn’t about finding out what an athlete can survive. It’s about understanding what they need right now and what they’ll need six months or a year from now.
Testing helps us answer questions like:
- Is this athlete ready for more load?
- Are they relying too much on one side of their body?
- Are they strong, but struggling to move efficiently?
- Are they moving well, but lacking strength to support growth?
Without testing, those answers are guesses.
We Start With How an Athlete Moves
Before anyone jumps, sprints or lifts, we look at movement.
Things like ankles, hips, spine and shoulder mobility might not sound exciting, but they underpin everything an athlete does. If mobility is restricted or poorly controlled, training harder doesn’t solve the problem, it usually makes it worse.
This is especially important for juniors and teenagers, whose bodies are changing rapidly. Growth spurts can temporarily affect coordination, mobility and strength balance. Testing allows us to adapt training to the athlete, rather than forcing the athlete to adapt to the program.
What About Our Pro Athletes You Ask?
GREAT QUESTION!
There’s a reason they say the best athletes in the world are the best cheaters (that’s got nothing to do with winning or losing), it’s got everything to do with how they move. The best athletes are typically great because they have found a way to do something functionally (or dysfunctionally) to gain a competitive advantage. Our goal – identify these movements and work with them.
Jumping Tells Us More Than You Think
Next, we jump.
Using force plates, we don’t just look at how high an athlete jumps, we look at how they jump and land.
Two athletes might jump the same height, but one could jump really quickly, the other could jump really slowly, one could land really awkwardly, the other could land like a cat. Which athlete would you prefer on your team?
Strength Without Risk
Strength testing doesn’t always mean heavy weights.
A large part of our strength profiling uses isometric testing, where athletes push or pull against an immovable object. It’s safe, low fatigue, and incredibly useful for assessing key muscle groups like hips, hamstrings, groin and calves.
These areas are common injury sites in sport, especially during growth periods for young athletes or high training load phases for others. Isometric testing gives us insight without placing unnecessary stress on your body.
What About My Raw Strength?
Don’t worry, we test this too!
Throughout your training cycle at SRA, we analyse and predict your 1RM max efforts for key lifts relative to your body weight. This gives us valuable insight into how strong you really are and is based on the work you do with your day to day training, rather than glorifying “Strength Testing Days”.
When Strength Meets Speed
For older or more experienced athletes, we also assess how strength changes across different loads using velocity-based testing.
That sounds technical, but the idea is simple: we measure how fast an athlete moves a weight, not how much weight they can lift.
This helps us understand whether an athlete needs:
- More strength
- More speed
- Or better transfer between the two
It’s one of the biggest reasons two athletes training the same way can get very different results, and why individualisation matters.
Yes, We Test Speed (But Not for Bragging Rights)
Speed and agility are part of most sports, so we test them too.
But not to rank athletes or label them as “fast” or “slow”.
We test speed to:
- Track progress over time
- Identify technical deficiencies
- Guide our training blocks
A little bit of bragging rights never hurt anyone though.
What Athletes (And Parents) Actually Get From Testing
At the end of testing, athletes don’t just walk away with numbers.
They leave with:
- Clear explanations
- Simple takeaways
- A better understanding of their own body
- A training plan that makes sense
Parents gain confidence knowing their child’s training isn’t based on guesswork.
The Bigger Picture
Performance testing at SRA isn’t about chasing numbers or creating pressure.
It’s about:
- Keeping athletes healthy
- Supporting long-term development
- Making smarter decisions at the right time
- Building confidence through understanding
Because when athletes know why they’re training a certain way, everything changes.
That’s what performance testing at SRA is really about.
Want to Learn More?
If you’d like a clearer picture of how you move or you’re an athlete wanting a more individualised approach, our Initial Performance Screen is the best place to start.
It gives us the information we need to:
- Build a program that fits the athlete, not the other way around
- Identify strengths, limitations and injury risk factors early
- Track progress with purpose, not guesswork
Whether you’re part of our Junior Development Programs, a weekly member, or just exploring your options, we’re always happy to talk through what testing involves and whether it’s right for you.