UPANDRUNNING Medical Centre, Dubai‑based premier medical and rehabilitation group, has launched two new athlete medical assessments, The Elite Athlete Assessment and The Recreational Athlete Assessment, designed to give active people in Dubai a clearer, medically supervised picture of their performance, recovery and injury risk.
The new assessments respond to a growing reality in sport and fitness: many people train consistently, but few have the medical data needed to understand what is helping their performance and what may be holding it back.
For many athletes and active adults, issues such as low iron, reduced cardiorespiratory fitness or strength asymmetry can go unnoticed until they begin affecting training, recovery or injury risk. Research shows that iron deficiency affects up to 35% of female athletes (British Journal of Sports Medicine), low cardiorespiratory fitness is linked with up to 15 times higher long-term mortality risk between low and high fitness groups (JAMA Network Open), and strength asymmetry of more than 10% can increase musculoskeletal injury risk (American Journal of Sports Medicine).
“People often assume that if they are training hard, they are training well,” said Dr. Anna Zickerman, Founder and Medical Director of UPANDRUNNING. “But performance is not just about effort. It is also about knowing the body’s baseline, identifying hidden risks early and using objective data to guide training, recovery and long-term health.”
The Elite Athlete Assessment is a 2 hour per day assessment over two days protocol for professional and competitive athletes, combining full sports medicine examination, advanced cardiac screening, VO2 max/CPET testing, comprehensive blood panel (iron studies, hormones, electrolytes), and VALD technology for strength/power analysis including countermovement jumps, isometric mid-thigh pulls, Nordic hamstring tests and injury risk profiling.
The Recreational Athlete Assessment is a 2 hour option for gym-goers, runners and amateur sports players, featuring physician consultation, resting ECG, spirometry, body composition analysis, submaximal stress exercise test for aerobic fitness, targeted VALD tests (e.g., single-leg CMJ, hop tests) and a health-focused blood panel (iron, thyroid, vitamins, HbA1c).
Both deliver physician-reviewed reports with training zones, benchmarks and actionable insights, available at UPANDRUNNING’s centre on Sheikh Zayed Road in Studio Republik, led by Sports Medicine Specialist Dr. Zahra alongside physiotherapists and podiatrists.
The launch comes at a time when more people in the UAE are taking part in sport, fitness and endurance training, while also seeking more personalised support to stay active safely. UPANDRUNNING says the new assessments are part of its wider commitment to evidence-based sports medicine, rehabilitation and performance care in Dubai.
