Injury prediction in veteran football players using the Functional Movement Screen™

ABSTRACT

The Functional Movement Screen™ (FMS™) is aimed at assessing fundamental movements and is often used to identify players’ injury risk. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the FMS™ can be used to predict injuries in veteran footballers (aged > 32 years). Eighteen veteran football teams (n = 238) were recruited and prospectively followed for 9 months. The players (44 ± 7 years; 178 ± 7 cm, 84 ± 11 kg) performed the FMS™ at the start of the study period. Players’ exposure hours and injuries were recorded. The difference of FMS™ overall score between injured and uninjured players was not significant (11.7 ± 2.9 vs 12.2 ± 2.8 points; Mann-Whitney U-test P = 0.17). Players scoring <10 (score < 1 standard deviation [SD]) below the mean) had a significantly higher injury incidence (z-statistics P < 0.05) compared to an intermediate reference group (mean ± 1 SD; scores of 10–14). No lower injury incidence for players with scores of >14 (score > 1 SD above the mean) was found. Further analyses of potential risk factors suggest higher age, lower body mass and a longer football career to be risk factors for injuries. The findings of this study suggest that the suitability of the FMS™ for injury prediction in veteran footballers is limited.

KEYWORDS:

• Soccer
• prevention
• assessment
• risk factor
• senior
• FMS
• recreational football

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the FIFA Medical Assessment and Research Centre (F-MARC), and the German Football Federation (Deutscher-Fussball-Bund, DFB). We wish to thank Stephanie Kaiser, Eugen Frisen, Clemens Feistenauer, Martin Hämmerle, Pierre Anthonij and Roman Quadflieg for their help collecting the data. In addition, many thanks to Hugh Fullagar and Ross Julian for proofreading. Special thanks should also be given to all participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.