Swansea City Nordbord hamstring injury device

Swansea City's medical team has turned to a new high-tech device called the 'NordBord' in a bid to reduce the number of hamstring injuries suffered by Garry Monk's squad this season.
Vast research and development has been carried out over recent years to improve the prevention and treatment of injuries which cost players valuable time on the pitch and significant amounts of money to clubs in lost playing time.
But despite all the investment in improving the injury outlook in sport, hamstring injuries remain one of the most common experienced in professional football with rates refusing to decline along the same lines as other injuries.
In a bid to reverse the trend, Swans physio Richard Buchanan has teamed up with Vald Performance to assess and train the players on a new device called the NordBord.
Vald Performance is an Australian outfit that alongside a team of highly regarded researchers - primarily Dr Anthony Shield from the Queensland University of Technology and Dr David Opar of the Australian Catholic University - has developed a machine that uses advanced miniaturised sensors to quickly asses the strength of a player's hamstrings.



Despite the fact that the NordBord is currently unavailable on the commercial market, Vald Performance has supplied the Swans with a prototype which the club has been using for pre-season testing.
The club is one of only a few select high-profile sports teams worldwide to be granted exclusive use that allows Buchanan to quickly record the strength and force generated by each player's hamstrings while they perform an exercise known as the Nordic Curl.
During pre-season testing, Buchanan utilised the NordBord device alongside many other tests performed by the medical and sports science teams. Based on the test results, players will be allocated into work groups during the season to ensure that any medical or physical input is as specific to an individual player's needs as possible.
All this work the players must undertake is on top of the football conditioning, technical and tactical work led by the coaching staff.

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