Application of Functional Movement Screen to the Evaluation of Youth’s Physical Health

In order to improve the physical health level, the test and evaluation of physical health for youth emerged with the goal of comprehensive determination of healthy situation of youngsters, and more importantly of orientational function to guide them scientific way of physical exercises. Current physical health test typically focus on the performance of physical fitness test (PFT), such as strength, endurance, flexibility …, without considering the evaluation of basic human movement pattern and posture alignment. Functional Movement Screen (FMS) is a simple and convenience test designed following basic movement principles of the natural human growth and development, which can make a systematic and effective evaluation on our basic movement abilities, like mobility, stability and symmetry. As the fundamental of functional training system and the classic test of body functional movement, FMS is widely applied in physical therapy and strength and conditioning area, and has good reliability and validity. This research selected randomly 120 middle school students as the subjects. 7 functional movement tests and 3 exclusive tests were tested to evaluate the basic body functional pattern. And standard physical fitness tests were tested in the following day. The results of FMS show that the total average score of FMS is 14.98. Although at a low level, it is not below 14 points which standards a higher risk of potential injury. The boy’s average total score is 15.12, and the girl’s is 14.83. There is no significant difference between different sex. Many basic functional movement problems like the poor stability, bilaterally asymmetry of body strength, eversion of the knees and obviously unparallel shoulders are largely observed during the tests. The research reveals: (1) the basic functional movement ability of youth is low, and correcting training is needed for them to move well first before improving the physical fitness performance; (2) The low correlation between FMS and PFT indicates that movement quality and physical performance are two independent abilities and could not be replaced by each other; (3) It is suggested that functional movement ability should be tested besides standard physical fitness ability to avoid potential injures and further improve movement and posture of youth.