As an athletic training undergrad, you can say I was raised in the school of Gary Grey and Grey Cook Functional movement. As I crossed over into the world of strength and conditioning I was thrilled to see that “prehab” is no longer what the athletic trainer does. In fact, prehab itself is a thing of the past. Now it’s become apart of what most performance coaches do when writing a balanced program for their athletes. The emphasis first on function, as a means to strength and speed is reigning supreme to the old “just move weight” by any means necessary, or in these days you might say the “picking things up and putting them down” mentality. You may be able to “move that weight” however enter your 50, 60,70 year old non-functioning body. I’m not saying lose the weight but, lets work smarter and put our athletes in a position in which their bodies can function optimally, isn’t that what we want,? optimal performance? I sure as heck want a functioning body at 50. So how do we do this? Center stage FMS.
What is FMS? It’s a screening TOOL to be used by the performance coach to assess an athlete’s functional mobility and stability. This is NOT a diagnostic test. This screen is simply used as a red flag system in which, the assessment clues the performance coach on any imbalances or deficiencies in mobility and stability that may potentially scream INJURY! With the knowledge from this screen we can prescribe appropriate programs attacking the area in which the athlete is deficient to get them to a place of greater function and ultimately, performance enhancement.
With that said, how do you asses movement? According to Grey Cook, there are seven functional movements:
1. Squatting
2. Stepping
3. Lunging
4. Reaching
5. Leg raise
6. Push up
7. Rotational stability
If these movement patterns can be preformed perfectly, without compensation the athlete would score a 3, if there is compensation 2, if an inability to perform the movement 1, and the goose egg is given if the movement pattern causes pain. A perfect score is a 21, I assure you almost nobody will get this! Since the day we went from crawling to standing our bodies learned to compensate, and the thing about the body is, it learns well!
So why FMS? My first thought on FMS was this: awesome! About time we had something tangible for assessment of functional movement! Great, we are going to get our athletes moving optimally and build strength and speed off of Quality functional patterns, However, I have to be honest I had a few reservations. My thought was, great for private sector but how in the world am I going to test 150-300+ colligate athletes preseason with a seven movement screening test?. My next thought, my football coaches ask me, “why this FMS?” and “How much did Johnny squat and bench?” Dilemma? My answer was heck no there is no way I can do this with 150+ athletes and how in the world will I convince my football coaches! However, as I started to perform the test more and more I realized it takes seven minutes, the excuse of time is out the window. To the football coaches, I’ll show you bigger numbers, with less injury, and more efficient athletes. How could they say no? and how could I afford not to implement FMS? I can’t!
Ultimately, We are talking about reducing the risk of injury by identifying the musculoskeletal problems with the basic movement patterns and working together as athletic trainers and strength coaches to build programs that will improve the quality of movement for optimal performance. This is our job as performance coaches. We owe it to our athletes to give them the best tools for the greatest success on and off the field and when the days of competition are over, leave them with highly functioning bodies well into there 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s.
Seriously, read up on FMS! I really can’t do it justice!