Introducing Ellie Woolhead - Leeds Beckett University
Ellie is a dedicated sports therapist and recent researcher on the reliability of the KangaTech (KT360) system for knee flexor strength measurements.
With a sports therapy undergraduate degree and sports medicine masters degree from Leeds Beckett University, Ellie has worked with Leeds United Women’s FC and was the lead therapist at Watford FC Women. She now brings her expertise to Arsenal Women’s FC academy.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and the research you conducted at Leeds Beckett University.
I completed my undergraduate degree in sports therapy at Leeds Beckett university and stayed on to complete my masters in sports medicine there aswell. As a sports therapist I use evidence based findings to guide my decision making process in terms of rehab, injury assessment & treatment, and was interested in publishing my own work. I had the opportunity to collect data using the the KT360 for my masters dissertation, therefore I decided to do a reliability study looking at the intra-rater and inter-rater reliability of this machine to assess whether it could be integrated in to multidisciplinary sports science/medical departments as a tool for measuring an athletes maximal isometric strength.
What drew you to conducting your research on KT360?
I identified a gap in the literature for a study like this, which assessed the intra-rater and inter-rater reliability of the KT360. Previous research on the first Kangatech model provides some reliability estimates for this portable fixed-frame device. However, there are no studies that have conducted a reliability study using the Kt360, none that have considered the testing protocol used in this study, and none that have estimated the inter-rater reliability of this device. .
How did you find working with the KT360 during your data collection phase?
I found the KT360 easy to use and as it is portable it is very convenient, it doesn’t take long to set up and get out for each testing session which helped a lot as we had a lot of data to collect.
Beyond the specific context of the KT360, what broader implications does your research have for the field of sports science and rehabilitation medicine?
The research demonstrated almost perfect intra-rater and inter-rater reliability when testing maximal isometric knee flexion with the KT360, as well as low standard error of measurement and minimal detectable change. This study provides multidisciplinary sports science and medical departments with evidence that the 90 degrees hip and knee flexion protocol is worthy of consideration when repeat measures of isometric knee flexion are required within the non-elite sporting population that was used in the study. This suggests that the kt360 machine is reliable so the protocol used in the study may be useful to mitigate injury risk as well as making return to play decisions and guiding rehabilitation protocol’s.
Do you have any plans to conduct further research around isometric screening?
It would be great to take this research further and investigate if equivalent findings exist in different age groups and populations such as elite sports teams, and I would also be interested to compare reliability estimates to other fixed force frame dynamometer devices to provide more research in this field.
What are your go-to resources for relevant industry news, research and inspiration?
I like to keep up with the latest research to support my work as a therapist, so I read peer-reviewed journal articles; one of my favourites is the British Journal of Sports Medicine, and they now have a blog page that summarises industry-relevant news which is good when you don’t have time to read a full paper. Podcasts are also a great way to keep up with current literature. I listen to them when I go for a run or when I have a long drive. I’m also grateful that I can do a lot of CPD at my work in both clinical and football settings; I get the opportunity to be around a multidisciplinary team of doctors, S&C coaches, osteopaths, nutritionists and psychologists, which is great. I find practical sessions useful to see how other therapists work, and it’s always great to bounce ideas off each other and learn from other practitioners' experiences.
Read the full research paper here