In the last two decades competitive sports participation has expanded and recently we have seen an explosion of young people competing in team and individual sports. Whilst youth sport should be about fun, health and personal development - this dynamic has changed - as competitiveness in junior sport has risen as if to match growing professionalism in the adult sports industry.
An inevitable consequence of this is sports related injuries have increased significantly.
Injuries that were once seen mostly in active adults are now occurring more frequently with children. In a time when young athletes are more likely to specialize in one sport and participate year-round, youth sport participants are more prone to injury than ever.
As many as 28% of football players in organized sports will sustain an injury between the ages of 5 and 14. One key in injury treatment and prevention for youth is early recognition.
We retrain the body and importantly the brain to improve movement efficiency to re-establish sound movement patterns.
The Functional Movement Screen (FMS), is frequently used as a baseline to assess injury risk by identifying key risk factors.
If significant limitations or inefficiencies present in a movement, a corrective path is essential to ensure that durability and quality are restored – symmetry and efficiency of movement are proven to have a positive impact on injury probability.
FMS UK in collaboration with FMS have developed the Movement Patterns programme. The programme is a movement education – assessment – reporting and remediation software system for sports associations.
The programme is a tool to identify poorly developed or maintained movement patterns that potentially make gross motor skills or specific sports skills difficult and can lead to injury.
The initial Functional Movement Screen is comprised of seven movement tests that require a balance of mobility and stability. The patterns used provide observable performance of basic, mobility and stability movements by placing children in challenging positions where weaknesses, imbalances, asymmetries and limitations become noticeable.
The platform is accessed through an integrated FMS UK App – by phone or tablet – it stores every child’s results and establishes a movement passport that can be monitored continually. A report is automatically produced outlining any required remediation needed and the necessary training program established - this is available to be emailed to parents at any time.
