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Movement and recovery · Guide 16 of 30

Movement screening

Assessing how someone moves before loading.

16 rules · 3 experts · 57 sources

Screening is how good coaches replace guesswork with data: a few minutes of watching fundamental movements tells you what to load, what to train carefully, and what to send to a professional. This topic is anchored by Gray Cook, creator of the Functional Movement Screen, so his systems dominate, but the core logic (screen first, protect pain, retest everything) is echoed by Kelly Starrett, Bill Hartman, Vonda Wright, and others. The healthy tension in the field is between standardised scoring and the view that every movement pattern is an individual solution rather than a deviation from an ideal.

What works

Screen movement before you program, load, or correct anything. Gray Cook argues that everyone entering a gym should be screened to guide exercise selection and flag anyone needing healthcare referral (Instagram), and that skipping assessment creates guesswork and wasted time (Instagram). Kelly Starrett calls a movement diagnostic framework essential so coaches know where to intervene instead of guessing (Instagram), Vonda Wright recommends functional motion assessment to catch compensations that feed pain and injury (YouTube), and Frans Bosch makes movement analysis the foundation of individualised training (Instagram). Mike Boyle includes assessment as a pillar of advanced programming (Instagram).

Do not load a painful or dysfunctional pattern. Cook's operating rule is simple: a screen score of one (major limitation) or zero (pain) means that pattern is not loaded, while a three can be used for metabolic work (Instagram). Pain with movement is itself a graded risk factor, rising with each additional painful pattern (Instagram), and painful patterns get routed to a deeper diagnostic breakout such as the SFMA (Instagram).

Injury risk is multifactorial, so combine the movement screen with balance, history, and lifestyle data. Cook is explicit that the FMS screens for risk factors rather than predicting injuries directly (Instagram). Individual scores of one and asymmetries carry more meaning than the composite score, which is inconsistently predictive across studies (YouTube). Combining the FMS with the Y Balance Test, injury history, and current pain sorts people into risk categories with real teeth: in his data, the substantial-deficit group had a 61 percent chance of lost-time injury versus 16 percent for slight deficits, and the combined high-risk group was 3.4 times more likely to sustain a non-contact injury (YouTube). He extends the same logic to sleep, breathing, behavioral health, and nutrition in wellness screening (Instagram).

Assess, intervene, reassess. Bill Hartman frames assessment as a feedback loop: quantitative and qualitative measures taken before and after every intervention, within sessions and across months (YouTube). Cook's version: after treating a mobility or stability limitation, always recheck whether movement changed (Instagram), and reassess gait after about four weeks of intervention (YouTube). Both warn that single snapshots mislead because movement fluctuates with sleep, stress, and fatigue (Instagram).

Asymmetry is normal; its size and context determine whether it matters. Cook notes everyone carries asymmetry from hand dominance and habit, and that screens should guide programming modifications rather than exclude people from sport (Instagram, Instagram). His working thresholds: strength asymmetries above 10 percent are significant, and even 5 percent can matter in fast, elastic movements (YouTube). Jordan Shallow agrees asymmetry is a normal feature of human structure, mattering mainly when symptomatic or when symmetrical barbell output is the goal (Instagram, YouTube). Bill Hartman cautions against automatically labelling observed patterns as dysfunction, since they may be the person's best available solution (Instagram).

Movement is systemic, so isolated joint and muscle tests mislead without context. Hartman argues that all measurements are "dirty" with compensations, that manual muscle testing is confounded by recruitment strategies, and that valid assessment means interpreting the whole movement strategy (YouTube, YouTube). Cook's regional interdependence version: compare left to right and clear the joints above and below the painful area (Instagram). Shallow adds that a valid assessment must include the athlete's subjective experience of pain and sensation (Instagram).

Correctives are short-term awareness tools, not a permanent training block. Cook holds that corrective exercise is over-prescribed, should create awareness and remove harmful behaviors, and gets retired once the screen clears (Instagram, Instagram). Starrett agrees that random correctives are busy work without a diagnostic framework behind them (TikTok).

Match the screen to the population. Cook's Quick Screen uses 5 movements and 3 clearing tests, takes under 5 minutes with no equipment, and suits general and older populations; the full FMS is for athletes and higher-demand clients heading into loaded lifting (Instagram, Instagram, YouTube).

Speed, load, and fatigue reveal what slow screens hide. Kelly Starrett notes positions that look fine slow and unloaded often break down at speed, exposing what shapes the body trusts (Instagram), and recommends assessing squat form under speed and change of direction (TikTok). Joel Jamieson coaches movement quality cues, not effort cues, when athletes are fatigued, because motor patterns built under fatigue drive both performance and injury risk (Instagram). Bill Hartman adds that high aerobic fitness can mask poor movement for a long time (YouTube).

For specific situations

  • Return to play after lower-body injury: pain resolution is not recovery; Kelly Starrett uses a single-leg jump test for balance, spring, load tolerance, and confidence before clearing the injured side (Instagram).
  • Older and deconditioned clients: use the lower-barrier Movement Readiness Screen rather than skipping screening (YouTube); assess push-up organisation from an incline, starting in the down position (Gray Cook, Instagram). Jeff Cavaliere's "old man test" (dress one foot fully while standing on the other) is a playful benchmark for over-40s (Instagram).
  • Midlife adults, especially women over 40: Vonda Wright recommends preventive gait and biomechanical assessment before pain develops (YouTube); her single-leg squat test exposes pelvic stability deficits in runners with pain (TikTok).
  • Runners: screen asymmetries with the Faber test and a modified Thomas test (drop the leg slightly off the table rather than forcing 45 degrees of extension); resolving asymmetries reduced compensation on long runs and improved next-day heart rate variability (Gray Cook, Instagram).
  • Youth and students: screening at school age builds movement awareness for lifelong health, and there is no acceptable reason for a healthy 17-year-old athlete to score a one or have pain (Instagram, Instagram).
  • Useful specific tests with numbers: hip rotation window of 70 to 90 degrees total at 90 degrees of hip flexion and hip flexion to 120 to 130 degrees without the knee drifting out (Kelly Starrett, YouTube, YouTube); dorsiflexion tested with the knee tracking over the mid-foot, a stick in front of the big toe, in a supported tandem stance (Gray Cook, Instagram); neck screen of chin to fingers, chin parallel to clavicle (Instagram); back-to-wall shoulder flexion instead of the Appley scratch test, which mostly measures compensation (Bill Hartman, YouTube).
  • Stability versus mobility differential: inconsistent limitations that change with posture point to stability problems; consistent limitations regardless of posture point to mobility problems (Gray Cook, YouTube).

Open questions

  • Does everyone need a formal screen? Cook says yes, everyone who walks into a gym (Instagram). Jordan Shallow disagrees in practice: formal screening is not necessary for every client, training can often begin without it, and every exercise already works as an assessment (Instagram).
  • Scoring against a standard versus reading an individual solution. Cook's system scores movements 0 to 3 against criteria of "good enough" (YouTube). Hartman resists this framing: the squat is a strategy that reveals how a person solves a movement problem, not a test against a predetermined ideal, and structure shapes what is normal for each body (Instagram, YouTube). Starrett leans the same way as Hartman on positions: the useful question is whether a position gives more options and transfer, not whether it is "right" (Instagram).
  • How predictive is the FMS composite? Cook's own long-form account is candid: composite scores below 14 associate with elevated injury risk in some studies (2.7 to 11 times, and sevenfold in one dataset of active adults) but predictive ability is inconsistent, and individual ones plus asymmetries matter more (YouTube, YouTube). Short-form clips citing the strong numbers without the caveats overstate the case.

Cautions

  • Bill Hartman's assessment model (base of support, internal and external rotation space, propulsion phases, infrasternal archetypes) is a single-school framework; his practical warnings about measurement compensations are broadly useful, but the full model lacks independent corroboration in this collection.
  • Do not treat screen results as diagnoses. A poor overhead squat says do not load squats yet; it does not say why, and further assessment is required (Gray Cook, Instagram).
  • Do not train the test: screens identify dysfunction, but practising the test movements is not the fix (YouTube).

Putting it into practice

  • Run a quick screen (toe touch, shoulder mobility, rotation, balance, squat, plus a neck check) on every new client before loading; it takes under 5 minutes with no equipment.
  • Apply the score gate: pain in a pattern means no loading and referral or SFMA-style breakout; a major limitation means train around it while correcting; a clean pattern can be loaded and used for conditioning.
  • Build a risk profile, not a single score: combine screen results with Y Balance testing, injury history, current pain, sleep, and lifestyle factors, and put resources into the highest-risk people first.
  • Retest after every intervention: recheck the limited pattern in-session, have clients repeat their warm-up drill after training as a movement-clean check, and reassess gait about 4 weeks into any correction block.
  • Time-limit correctives: once the pattern screens acceptably, replace the corrective with loaded training; do not run corrective blocks indefinitely.
  • Manage asymmetry rather than chase perfect symmetry: act when strength differences exceed 10 percent (5 percent for fast elastic sports), add extra sets on the weaker side, start drills on the stronger side to teach the feel, and keep daily symmetrical flows in the program.
  • Re-screen under speed, load, and fatigue before clearing athletes for high-demand work, and cue quality rather than effort when fatigue degrades mechanics.
  • Use return-to-play gates after lower-body injury: side-to-side single-leg jump comparison, not just absence of pain and swelling.

Experts in this guide: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube.

Before you act. Entrain is a free knowledge resource. It brings together what named doctors, scientists and coaches teach publicly, with sources, so you can explore and discuss it with your own clinician. It does not diagnose, treat or prescribe, and it is not a substitute for medical care.

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