Relationship Between Functional Movement Patterns And Performance Between Division Iii Women’S Soccer And Volleyball

Abstract

The functional movement screen (FMS) has been shown to be a valid and reliable tool for assessing fundamental movement patterns. While dysfunctional movement patterns have been shown to increase an athlete’s risk for injury, it is unclear what influence they have on athletic performance. PURPOSE: To examine the relationship between FMS testing and sport specific performance tests for Division III (D3) women’s soccer (SOC) and volleyball (VB), as well as compare performance differences between sports. METHODS: 17 SOC (19+0.3 yo) and 13 VB (19.2+ 0.4 yo) players consented to the study and performed pre-season FMS, a 3-site % body fat (%BF) skinfold analysis, and performance testing. Performance testing included 1-min push-up test, Vertical Jump (VJ) test, Illinois Agility (IA) test, and 12x 20 m repeated sprint test (RST) with 20 sec recovery each sprint. 1-way ANOVA was run to compare differences between sports. Pearson correlations were run to examine the relationships between the FMS and performance measures. All data were expressed as mean + se, and all significance levels were set at α=0.05. RESULTS: Players were of similar height but VB players weighed (76.5 + 2.1 kg) significantly (p<0.0001) more than SOC (63.0 + 1.9 kg). %BF was significantly higher (p=0.0022) for VB (28.6 + 1.4% vs 22.2 + 1.3%), which resulted 5.8 kg greater fat free mass (FFM) for VB (p=0.0001). There were no significant differences in any of the performance measures, including VJ. However, the estimated power output for the VJ was significantly higher (p<0.0001) for VB (3888.1 + 105.8 W) than SOC (3094.6 + 92.6 W). The FMS lunge score was moderately related to both mean (r= -0.46, p= 0.0140) and best (r= -0.41, p= 0.0295) RST time (sec). The total FMS score showed a similar relationship for mean (r= -0.42, p= 0.00251) and best (r= -0.50, p= 0.0066) RST. %BF appears to negatively impact FMS scores (r= -0.36, p=0.0447). CONCLUSIONS: In a cohort of D3 women athletes, there appears to be no differences between athletes in common skill-related performance measures, despite significant differences in %BF and FFM. The inverse relationship between %BF and lower FMS scores suggests that reducing body fat could improve performance measures. The FMS may be useful in identifying potential skill-related performance decrements in similar athletes.