The Athletic Shoulder (ASH) Test

Isometric shoulder strength in three prone positions — I, Y and T — profiling force across the range rather than at a single angle. What the positions are, why the range matters, and how the preset runs.

Updated August 27, 2026

A full write-up of this test is in progress. What follows is the working summary the platform uses; it will be expanded with the protocol detail, the normative context and the interpretation guidance.

The Athletic Shoulder Test (Ashworth et al., 2018) measures maximal isometric shoulder force in three prone positions, named for the shape the arm makes:

PositionAbductionWhat it loads
I180°Arm overhead, in line with the trunk
Y135°The mid-range diagonal
T90°Arm straight out from the shoulder

The point of testing all three is that shoulder force is not one number. A shoulder can be strong at 90° and deficient overhead, and a single-position test cannot tell you which. Profiling the three positions gives a shape rather than a value, and it is the shape that tends to matter for overhead and contact athletes.

How ForceIQ runs it

The preset builds three bilateral blocks — I, then Y, then T — with three trials per arm in each. The order is deliberate: both arms are tested before the prone position is changed, because repositioning is the slow part and doing it once per position rather than once per arm is the difference between a workable protocol and an abandoned one.

Results are reported in force, not torque. The test is performed with the hand on a plate rather than through a wrist cuff, so the segment-length model ForceIQ uses elsewhere does not describe the lever, and reporting a torque would mean inventing one. The published thresholds are in N and N/kg for the same reason.

Where it appears

The three positions are captured as three separate assessments and read back as one card on the dashboard, with a radial plot showing the profile and a per-position symmetry index. Nothing about the grouping is stored — it is derived from the positions themselves.

The preset is on the paid plan, because eighteen trials means eighteen session records and the free tier allows ten per month.

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