(Research Hub Theater) The Efficacy of FMS as a Tool to Predict Head and Neck Trunk Disorders in College Male American Football Players: A Prospective Study

Background and/or Objectives:

Background: Functional movement screens (FMS) have been studied in a variety of sports to determine their effectiveness as a disorders prediction tool. However, FMS has not yet been studied for Head and Neck Trunk Disorders (HNTD) , which commonly occur in college American football.

Objective: To determine the effectiveness of the FMS as a tool for predicting HNTD in college male American football players through a prospective study.

Design: Prospective cohort study

Setting: Gym in a college American football team

Participants: 66 male players on a college American football team

Interventions: Not applicable

Main Outcome Measures: FMS was measured in July 2021 and scored on a 4-point scale from 0 to 3 according to the scoring criteria of Cook et al. The occurrence of disorders in practice and games was then recorded until July 2022. HNTD were defined as head, neck, and trunk injuries that occurred during practice and games and had no clear point of injury. The group with disorders was defined as "disorders” and the group without disorders was defined as "non-disorders”.

Results: 22 were in “disorders” and 44 were in “non-disorder”. “Disorders” had significantly lower scores on the Deep Squat (DS) than “non-disorders” .

Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that DS may be the only tool among the FMS to predict HNTD in college male American football players. One of the causes of low DS scores is considered to be limited ankle dorsiflexion and limited trunk mobility. Players with low DS scores are more likely to develop HNTD because they repeatedly make contact in dangerous tackling positions with the head lower than the hips.