Movement quality evaluation through the functional movement screen in 12- and 13-year-old secondary-school adolescents

Introduction: The achievement of an optimal level of functional parameters by schoolchildren is essential to acquire appropriate motor competence to perform any sport or daily-life activity without difficulty. Objective: The objective of the study was to evaluate the quality of movement in adolescents using the Functional Movement Screen Test (FMS). Method: 35 schoolchildren between 12 and 13 years old (24 girls and 11 boys) participated in this cross-sectional, descriptive and comparative study. The FMS battery test, consisting of seven tasks of specific movement patterns (deep squat, hurdle step, in-line lunge, shoulder mobility, active straight leg raises, trunk stability push-up, rotary stability), was applied to evaluate the quality of movement. Results: Girls presented better quality of movement than boys, with an average global score of 16 points, compared to 15 of boys, without significant differences between them. In both girls and boys, the stability variable (hurdle step) showed the highest scores, while the in-line lunge was the test that presented the worst values. After the hurdle step, girls presented the highest values in rotary stability, while boys did in trunk stability. Conclusions: In general, the adolescents presented an acceptable level of movement quality, but would require compensatory exercises to reduce certain imbalances and asymmetries found.