Troy football players soon will be using new technology to predict and prevent injuries.

Coaches tested the DorsaVi program this week, a program designed to study student athletes’ movements in order to predict and prevent future injuries.

“We are looking at certain movement patterns that put athletes at risk not only for athletic injuries, specifically non-contact injuries to the ankle, knee and low back, but also the same movements that put them at risk for increases in athletic performance specifically vertical jump and sprint speed,” said Trent Nessler. He is the National Director of Sports Medicine Innovation for Select Medical. which is the parent company of Champion Sports Medicine, which has been the long term athletic training and medicine provider of Troy University.

Select Medical has studied these movements for quite some time according to Nessler, but this will be the first time they have been able to use the 3-D wearable sensor to be able to quantify their findings. The sensor is provided by DorsaVi, an Australian company whose product can detect motion and rotation with in one degree of a biomechanics lab.

Nessler said the technology will make the biggest impact when it comes to performing physicals

“One of our goals is to change how we do physicals,” Nessler said. “Traditionally in physicals we look at movement and test people’s hamstrings and do all this stuff that we think may lead to injury risk. For the first time we are able to take what is normally done in a very expensive biomechanics lab and be able to apply that in physicals. It means that kids are not going to get injured as much. When they do get injured, they will actually get back on the field or court faster.”

The technology could also help prevent fatigue injuries, such as ACL issues.

“It scores an athlete on frontal plate motion of the knee but also at the speed in which it occurs,” Nessler said. “We know those are two major risk factors, not only for ACL injuries and lower extremity injuries, but also athletic performance impact.”

DorsaVi is currently in use by a few teams in the NFL and NBA, but Troy would be one of the first colleges in the county to use the technology.

“It’s a great opportunity for our program,” said Troy football coach Neal Brown. “A lot of credit has to go to our athletic training program, but really Champion Sports Medicine.”

Brown said he is intrigued with what this technology could do for the program.

“I am really intrigued with just the injury prevention aspect of it,” Brown said. “We can find deficiencies in our student athletes and then work to build those deficiencies whether it be in the lower back or hamstrings anything we can do to prevent those major injuries where you miss a lot of time. I think that is what this program can do.”

The players are intrigued, as well.

“If you talk to every athlete I don’t think you will talk to one who wants to be injured,” Brown said. “It’s eye opening … they were excited about it. They understand that we are a beta school on it and they were excited.”