I was very honored to be asked to contribute an article to the Functional Movement Systems association on the benefits of using the FMS within the gymnastics population. For those that do not know, this is the company lead by some big hitters like Gray Cook, Greg Rose, and many others in developing the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) / Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA). They have helped the field of human movement leap forward in the last 10 years, and these systems are a few parts to my approach for rehabilitation and performance.
Now, although I do find huge value in using the FMS as one part of a screening process with gymnasts, it is certainly not the only thing I do. There are many different demands of gymnastics, specific injury patterns, and topics people need to investigate due to the unique nature of our sport. Due to this, I get a ton of questions on this topic from gymnastics coaches, strength coaches, medical providers, and athletes. To help people out with this important area, over the next two weeks I wanted to share some video lecture clips on movement screening from our most recent Gymnastics rEvolution Seminar. Here is the first 1/2 of the video, where I go over the first 4 components to my gymnastics screen.
I’m aware there is a ton of controversy that surrounds movement screening, if we are “correcting” anything really, if these screening components accurately portrait real life / sporting movements, and if these movement factors even matter in relation to injury prevention and optimal performance. Personally having studied a ton of movement variability and motor control research, I can understand where peoples criticisms stem from. With that being said, I strongly feel that rather than sit around bashing every possible tool or system available (huge pet peeve), we should do our best to help our athletes with the best practices available at this time. As the field grows and emerges more, we can learn from each other and keep getting better. For now I feel we have to do some sort of subjective, objective, and overall movement assessment to best help our athletes perform optimally. Next, I will share the second half of this lecture clip but for now I hope this helps! Take care, Dave