The Numbers
In 2021, Hawkin users registered a total of 948,000 force plate tests (rounded for simplicity)
That's 79,000 per month, or 2,597 tests/day
In a pandemic year where most sport teams missed a lot of time in-person, we'd say that's a lot of tests completed on an HD Force Plate.
Of those 948,000 force plate tests registered, 889,000 were successful tests (93.77% pass rate).
This means that 59,000 tests "failed"
A "failed" test is a test that does not make it to the Hawkin Cloud.
The Hawkin Cloud is a place to manage your force plate data more in-depth. If a test is "failed" and does not get pushed to the cloud it means that something was triggered that our research team deems a poorly collected test. This could be any number of things, but the two most common are a poor quiet phase (i.e. weighing period) and a countermovement (i.e. stretch) being present in a squat jump - a movement that is propulsive only.
Data integrity is important to us, and failing tests is just one measure we take to make sure Hawkin users collect more accurate data.
A Global Sport Technology Leader
In 2021, 31 countries registered a force plate test (15.89% of all countries).
The United States led the way with 637,000 total tests (67.19% of all tests collected). Canada came in second with 132,000 followed by the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and Chile. The remaining 100,500 tests were registered by 24 countries collectively.
2021 was also a big year as we opened up a subsidiary in Adelaide, Australia expanding our presence internationally.
Breakdown By Test Type
Out of the 889,000 successful tests that made it to the Hawkin Cloud, The most common test type was the Countermovement Jump (CMJ) totaling 713,000 (80.20% of tests). Historically, the CMJ is the most common force plate assessment. It is easily repeatable, and a standardized way to access an athlete's neuromuscular ability, and readiness to perform.
Coming in second place with 40,000 tests is the Free Run test. This test is fairly open-ended and reports back a simple force-time reading along with simple metrics such as average force, peak force, left/right difference, and standard deviation of force (i.e. force stability). This test allows a practitioner to perform any movement on the force plates. By applying a tag to this test type, a practitioner tells the system what the movement is for aggregation in the backend (i.e. back squat).
In last place was the Countermovement Rebound Jump. This test is the newest in literature, so it makes sense why some practitioners might be hesitant to use it. However, we foresee this test as being an extremely common test in the years to come as it serves as a regression to the Drop Jump - as it is two back-to-back CMJs and much easier to teach than the Drop Jump.
The remaining tests account for 136,000 total tests.
Your Data = Your Data.
We think it's important to reiterate our stance here on data ownership in human performance technology. The question is often asked when working with athletes, patients, and tactical personnel.
Our answer is very simple. Your data is your data, and you own it.
A note from Hawkin Dynamics CEO, Ben Watson: In any data model there is a certain amount of responsibility on any party who is interacting with that data. A cloud system (or a local computer) is, of course, only as secure as the person operating it. That being said, at the most basic level, the ownership of the data in question should never be confusing or obfuscated. As a technology company that works with many world-class organizations, we believe that user data is and always should be owned by the user. Even if a client leaves our ecosystem, their data is never compromised, used, or rolled into a larger data set. This brings the question as to how we can tap-into the massive volume of data our system handles every day. The answer is clear, from our perspective. If we want to use data (including customer data) for ANY purpose beyond simple support questions where we may need to deal with their data to resolve issues or answer questions, we need explicit written permission and extremely detailed parameters under which we can utilize said data. This ensures that we are never in a position and that our users are never in a position where the ownership or integrity of their data can be questioned. It is also standard practice for us to anonymize any user data in the above-mentioned theoretical scenario, to ensure that personally identifiable information is not in our possession.
Put simply, this means that if we want to use your data for any reason, we have to ask before we touch it. Certain scenarios where we may do this is for compiling large datasets of sport specific and age specific norms to share with our users and provide additional insight.
If you choose Hawkin Dynamics, you choose a company that respects your privacy. We maintain a professional relationship with all clients. It's part of the Hawkin Difference.
If you're interested in learning more about Hawkin Dynamics or our stance on data privacy, reach out here:
https://www.hawkindynamics.com/contact