Functional Movement Screen for Predicting Running Injuries in 18- to 24-Year-Old Competitive Male Runners

ABSTRACTHotta, T, Nishiguchi, S, Fukutani, N, Tashiro, Y, Adachi, D, Morino, S, Shirooka, H, Nozaki, Y, Hirata, H, Yamaguchi, M, and Aoyama, T. Functional movement screen for predicting running injuries in 18- to 24-year-old competitive male runners. J Strength Cond Res 29(10)2808–2815, 2015—The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the functional movement screen (FMS) could predict running injuries in competitive runners. Eighty-four competitive male runners (average age = 20.0 ± 1.1 years) participated. Each subject performed the FMS, which consisted of 7 movement tests (each score range0–3, total score range0–21), during the preseason. The incidence of running injuries (time lost because of injury ≤ 4 weeks) was investigated through a follow-up survey during the 6-month season. Mann-Whitney U-tests were used to investigate which movement tests were significantly associated with running injuries. The receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to determine the cutoff. The mean FMS composite score was 14.1 ± 2.3. The ROC analysis determined the cutoff at 14/15 (sensitivity = 0.73, specificity = 0.54), suggesting that the composite score had a low predictability for running injuries. However, the total scores (0–6) from the deep squat (DS) and active straight leg raise (ASLR) tests (DS and ASLR), which were significant with the U-test, had relatively high predictability at the cutoff of 3/4 (sensitivity = 0.73, specificity = 0.74). Furthermore, the multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that the DS and ASLR scores of ≤3 significantly influenced the incidence of running injuries after adjusting for subjectsʼ characteristics (odds ratio = 9.7, 95% confidence interval = 2.1–44.4). Thus, the current study identified the DS and ASLR score as a more effective method than the composite score to screen the risk of running injuries in competitive male runners.