Functional Movement Assessments: Why they're important

There are four major things you and your coach can obtain from a Functional Movement Assessment:

1. Identifying individuals at risk for injury.

2. Implementing a corrective exercise strategy to improve or normalize functional movement patterns.

3. Providing a tool to monitor progress in dynamic or changing fitness programs.

4. Establishing a functional movement baseline for appropriate exercise programming.

The important consideration to remember is that proper functional movement precedes performance and may ultimately lead to an injury reduction. If you haven’t had a screen and you are a beginner or experienced athlete, this is something you should give strong consideration.

Remember, you can’t build strength on top of dysfunction. Unfortunately, this happens often in today’s fitness industry. Trainers want to get the results you want as fast as possible. Great. But what happens when an injury occurs and you have a major setback in training?

Alliance Athletics is a strong believer in the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) and other assessment tools because it has helped us understand the movement patterns of our members on a deeper level and thus helped us design appropriate training programs that brought our members great levels of success. Most importantly, Alliance members are healthy and injury-free for the long-run. They reach their goals while staying pain-free. We take our time focusing on improving those foundational movements and taking the time to seal any cracks in movement patterns that may lead to injury later on.

As you begin your journey with Alliance Athletics, your coach will likely ask you to perform an FMS, or a written assessment will be sent to you online.

So what’s next?

On our App, you will be assigned each of the exercises that make up the FMS. Once you see your FMS pop-up on your App you will record yourself performing the exercise and submit the video to your Coach. Please note the specific way we would like you to film each exercise (ex. Front angle, side angle etc.)

Watch the introduction video closely and it will tell you the equipment you need. In most cases, you can find whatever you need around your house.

We will look at your video and score your assessment from our end. Each exercise is scored from 0-3. A score of 0 means that you have pain and/or are unable to do the exercise. A score of 3 means you're moving perfectly (FYI a score of 3 is unusual, so don't be alarmed). There’s one key thing to remember… THIS IS NOT A TEST! We are simply looking for those missing links in order to help you reach your goals to the best of our ability.

Please watch the video sent to you via the App and submit a video of your exercises back to us for assessment. We are looking for 3 repetitions of each exercise with the camera angles as shown in the video.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out to us!