The Level of the Functional Movement Screen Among Traditional Dancers

Shamsulariffin Samsudin,Borhannudin Abdullah,Segar A. Maniveloo

doi:10.5539/ass.v17n11p103

Abstract

Movement assessments are commonly used to assess athlete&rsquo;s risk of injury as well as basic and specific skill movement patterns; however, dance is identified to be differing from sports because the average dancer&rsquo;s training load is higher than the athletes. This study aims to identify the difference in the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) level among traditional dancers in Malaysia. A quasi-experimental study design was adopted, which involved 66 dancers (M = 33; F = 33). The study comprised traditional dancers from three ethnic backgrounds, namely, Malay, Chinese and Indian. The descriptive analysis described the level of the dancers&rsquo; FMS, as follows: Malay (M = 16.18, SD = 2.062), Chinese (M = 18.50, SD = 1.102), Indian (M = 18.23, SD = 1.445). The ANOVA analysis found a significant difference in the FMS scores among all three groups of dancers, F (2,63) = 14.026, p &gt;.000. The deep squat, hurdle step, shoulder mobility, active straight leg raise and trunk stability tests for push-up indicated a significant difference, whereas the inline lunges test and rotational stability tests showed no significance difference. However, the Post Hoc analysis showed no significant difference between the Chinese and Indian dancers. It can be concluded that there is a difference in FMS scores between Malay, Chinese and Indian dancers. FMS may be a useful tool to help identify dancers about the risk of injury and improve their movement quality.

Highlights

1.1 Research BackgroundA movement assessment serves to assess the quality of a person’s basic movements
Malay dancers had the highest score in inline lunges (M = 2.68, SD = .477) and the lowest score in the trunk stability push-ups (M = 1.86, SD = .710)
For Chinese dancers, they recorded the highest score in active straight leg raise (M = 3.00, SD = .000) and the lowest score in trunk stability push-ups (M = 2.27, SD = .631)

Summary

Introduction

1.1 Research BackgroundA movement assessment serves to assess the quality of a person’s basic movements. This movement assessment involves all the major muscles and joints in the body such as the spine and pelvic bones This testing method is commonly used by physiotherapists, physicians, and coaches to assess the risks of injury and movement patterns of basic and specific skills of athletes (Conlon, 2013). FMS consists of seven movements or tests to assess namely deep squats, hurdle steps, inline lunges, shoulder mobility, active straight leg raise, trunk stability push-ups and rotary stability. To perform all these movements, participants need muscle strength, flexibility, coordination, balance, range of motion and proprioception of specific joint mobility as well as a standardized movement system (Cook et al, 2006). According to Lockie, Schultz, Jordan, Callaghan, Jeffriess, and Luczo (2015), FMS is used to predict injuries, and it seems to have low efficacy in identifying movement weaknesses in complex movements ranging from fast movements from multiple directions and jumping

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion