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PERFORM · HIGH PERFORMANCE · SYDNEY & GOULBURN
Train like an athlete. Brain first.
For professional and elite athletes, the performance staff behind them, and anyone who wants to train like them. We measure how fast you sense, decide and produce force, then train the whole chain, not just the muscle at the end of it.
Working with athletes and teams in Sydney and across NSW. We come to you, or you come to us.
Your performance profile
Measured on performance grade systems.
Force and power
VALD ForceDecks · ForceFrame
Hamstring and groin
VALD NordBord · ForceFrame
Neck Strength
VALD DynaMo · Neckcare · TopSpin360
Reaction and decisions
SMARTfit
Engine
KORR CardioCoach VO2max
Balance and inner ear
Reax Run · VTS rail spinner
Planned versus reactive - our protocol
ForceDecks synced to SMARTfit lights
Who's it for
Built for professional and elite sport, and open to anyone who wants to train at that level.
Professional and elite teams
Rugby league and union, AFL, football, netball and Olympic sports. Testing and training that plugs into your performance department.
Elite and pathway athletes
Academies, institutes and scholarship programs. Build the reactive and sensory side early, and track it as athletes develop.
Performance and medical staff
S&C coaches, sports scientists, physios and team doctors who want sensory, reactive and neck data alongside their force and GPS numbers.
Combat and collision sports
Boxing, MMA, martial arts, league and union. Neck strength and head control.
Coming back from injury
ACL, hamstring, ankle or concussion. Back to performance, not just back to the field.
Military, police and first responders
Reaction, balance and decision-making when the job demands it, under load and fatigue.
The ikigai shift difference
Your force plate measures the output. We train the input.
Every explosive movement starts in the nervous system. In a game you don’t just push. You see, decide and react, then produce force. If any link is slow, the whole movement is slow, and that’s often where injuries happen.
01
Sense
Your eyes, inner ear and body read what’s happening around you.
02
Decide
Your brain picks the right move, fast, often under pressure and fatigue.
03
Fire
Your nervous system switches on the right muscles, in the right order, at speed.
04
Force
Your muscles produce power. This is what most testing measures.
The earliest part of a fast contraction depends mostly on the nervous system, not muscle size [1]. In a small study, four weeks of balance and sensorimotor training improved early force production without changing maximal strength [2]. Most programs train steps 3 and 4. We test and train all four.
What the research tells us
Planned power isn't game power
These are findings across groups of athletes, and most show links rather than proof of cause. Together, they point to the brain and senses as part of speed, power and staying injury-free.
Up to 2 x
Reacting changes the load
When athletes had to cut without planning it, twisting and side-to-side forces at the knee were up to twice as high as in a planned cut.
Besier et al. 2001 [3]
Slower
Reaction before ACL injury
Athletes who later had a non-contact ACL injury had slower reaction time and processing speed on pre-season brain testing than matched team-mates.
Swanik et al. 2007 [4]
2 x
Injury risk after concussion
Across eight studies, athletes who’d had a concussion had about twice the odds of a later muscle, joint or bone injury.
McPherson et al. 2019 [5]
Stronger
Necks and head control
Greater neck strength, and switching the neck muscles on before impact, were both linked with less head movement when the head was hit.
Eckner et al. 2014 [6]
Thinking
Changes how you land
Adding a decision or something to watch overhead changed how athletes landed from a jump, including more knee collapse inward.
Almonroeder et al. 2018 [7]
2.7 x
Hamstring strength matters
In elite Australian footballers, players with low eccentric hamstring strength in pre-season had 2.7 times the risk of a later hamstring strain.
Opar et al. 2015 [8]
Your performance profile
It starts with the Ikigai Shift Assessment.
Your Assessment covers the brain, balance and neck. For performance, we add the tests that show how you produce force, react and recover. You get one profile, explained in plain language, with clear targets.
Force
Power and asymmetry
Jumps and strength pulls on the force plate: peak force, how fast you produce it, and left versus right.
VALD ForceDecks
Our protocol
Planned versus reactive
The same jump, first planned, then on a random light, then with a choice, with the force plate synced to the lights. The drop between them is the gap most programs never train.
ForceDecks + SMARTfit lights, synced · Ikigai Shift protocol
Decide
Reaction and decision speed
Simple and choice reaction, alone, on the move and while thinking.
SMARTfit · Reaxing
Engine
VO2max and training zones
Your aerobic ceiling and heart-rate zones, measured, not estimated from a formula.
KORR CardioCoach
Neck
Strength and control
Strength in every direction, how fast the neck produces force, movement and position sense.
Neckcare · VALD DynaMo · TopSpin360
Hamstrings
Hamstrings and groin
Eccentric hamstring strength and hip strength, left versus right.
VALD NordBord · ForceFrame
Movement
Movement quality
Joint angles and movement patterns in squats, lunges and landings, without markers.
VALD HumanTrak
Balance
Steady under surprise
Balance four ways, then reactive balance on a moving surface.
mCTSIB · Reax Run perturbation protocol
Inner ear
Rotation and recovery
How your inner ear and eyes cope with spinning and how fast you settle, when you’re ready.
VTS rail spinner protocol
Body
Muscle, fat and body water
Track muscle as you build it, and make sure the scales tell the right story.
Inbody
How we train it
Built from your profile, and designed to sit alongside your coach’s program, not replace it.
Reactive power
Jumps, sprints and lifts triggered by lights and cues, so force is trained the way your sport asks for it.
Decision speed
Game-speed choices on SMARTfit, building up to decisions under fatigue.
Unstable-load strength
Water and bungee weights (Reax Lift) that make every rep a balance and reflex challenge.
Reactive balance
Reax Run and Reax Board throw unexpected changes at you, so staying steady becomes automatic.
Neck strength and control
Progressive neck training in every direction, including TopSpin360, for collision and contact sports.
Engine and recovery
Conditioning in your own heart-rate zones, plus infrared sauna and float tank as part of the plan.
Back from injury or concussion
Back to performance, not just back on the field.
After an injury or a concussion, the risk of the next injury goes up [5]. Being pain-free and symptom-free isn’t the finish line. We re-test reaction, balance, neck strength and reactive power, ideally against your own pre-season baseline, so you go back ready.
Going back to contact sport after a concussion needs a doctor’s clearance [9].
FOR TEAMS AND PERFORMANCE DEPARTMENTS
Bring it into your program.
Your staff already measure output. We help you add the input: how your athletes sense, decide and react. Use us as a service, learn our protocols, or put the equipment in your own facility.
01 Service
We test your squad
Pre-season, in-season and return-to-play profiles, at your facility or ours. Tested on VALD systems and our own protocols, with results shared with your staff (with athlete consent).
02 Education
Our protocols, your staff
Training for your S&C, sports science and medical staff in our planned-versus-reactive, neck and balance, baseline and return-to-performance protocols. A tailored package, priced to your program.
03 Equipment
Kit for your facility
Through our sister company, Ikigai Imports: SMARTfit, Reaxing (Reax Run, Reax Board, Reax Lift), Vestibular Training Services spinners and TopSpin360 [distribution terms: confirm]. Supplied and supported locally, with program design and fit-out.
Tested in our clinic first. Everything we recommend, we use with athletes and clients every week, so the protocols come with real-world experience, not just a product manual. Testing runs on the full VALD range (ForceDecks, ForceFrame, NordBord, DynaMo and HumanTrak) [export to your platform: confirm].
Ways to work with us
Everyone starts with the Ikigai Shift Assessment. Then choose the level that suits you or your squad.
Individual
Performance Profile
The full picture for one athlete.
• Force, reaction, engine and neck testing
• Your profile and targets, explained
• A plan you can take to your coach
Ongoing
Performance Training
Train the whole chain, then re-test.
• Coached sessions built from your results
• Re-test every 12 weeks
• Limitless membership, applied to your goals
Teams and departments
Performance Partnership
Testing, education and equipment, built around your program.
• Team reports for staff (with athlete consent)
• Staff education in our protocols
• Equipment and fit-out through Ikigai Imports
Common questions
Before you book
Not sure where to start? Call us on 02 4821 8500 and we'll talk it through.
Common questions
Do you work with professional clubs?
Can we buy the equipment for our own facility?
Do I need to be an elite athlete?
Can my coach or strength coach see the results?
How often should I re-test?
Is this a medical assessment?
Research behind this page
Maffiuletti NA, Aagaard P, et al. Rate of force development: physiological and methodological considerations. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2016;116(6):1091–1116.
Gruber M, Gollhofer A. Impact of sensorimotor training on the rate of force development and neural activation. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2004;92(1–2):98–105.
Besier TF, Lloyd DG, et al. Anticipatory effects on knee joint loading during running and cutting maneuvers. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2001;33(7):1176–1181.
Swanik CB, Covassin T, et al. The relationship between neurocognitive function and noncontact anterior cruciate ligament injuries. Am J Sports Med. 2007;35(6):943–948.
McPherson AL, Nagai T, et al. Musculoskeletal injury risk after sport-related concussion: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Am J Sports Med. 2019;47(7):1754–1762.
Eckner JT, Oh YK, et al. Effect of neck muscle strength and anticipatory cervical muscle activation on the kinematic response of the head to impulsive loads. Am J Sports Med. 2014;42(3):566–576.
Almonroeder TG, Kernozek T, et al. Cognitive demands influence lower extremity mechanics during a drop vertical jump task in female athletes. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2018;48(5):381–387.
Opar DA, Williams MD, et al. Eccentric hamstring strength and hamstring injury risk in Australian footballers. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2015;47(4):857–865.
Patricios JS, et al. Consensus statement on concussion in sport: the 6th International Conference on Concussion in Sport, Amsterdam 2022. Br J Sports Med. 2023;57(11):695–711.
These studies describe groups of people. Individual results vary, and no test or program can guarantee performance or prevent injury.