Predicting military training injury in recruits by functional movement screening: A cohort study

  Background  In recent years, the incidence of military training injuries in new recruits remains high, which seriously restricts the formation of military combat effectiveness. However, methods for predicting military training injuries are still very limited. Functional movement screening (FMS) can expose the weak links of subjects' flexibility and stability, which are often considered as one of the risk factors of military training injury.

  Objective  To explore the relationship between functional sports screening score and the risk level of military training injury of recruits, so as to provide evidences for predicting military training injury of recruits by using functional sports screening score.

  Methods  Totally 430 recruits in a boot camp were screened by functional movements screening. The 7 movement patterns scores and total scores were recorded, including shoulder mobility, active straight leg raise, rotary stability, trunk stability push-up, in-line lunge, hurdle step and deep squat. During the 6 months training period, the training injuries of each recruit were recorded. The relationship between FMS score and the risk of military training injury was analyzed.

  Results  The highest FMS score of the 430 recruits was 18 points and the lowest was 2 points. The cut-off value of FMS for injury risk of military training determined by Youden index was 13 points, and the area under ROC curve was 0.684 (P<0.05). The incidence of military training injuries in the recruits with FMS≤13 was significantly higher than those with FMS＞13 (31.89％ vs 13.47%, P＜0.001), with a relative risk of 2.368 (95%CI , 1.618 to 3.465). Logistic regression analysis showed active leg lift (OR=0.615), trunk stability push-up (OR=0.505), in-line lunge (OR=0.440) were associated with the lower risk of the military training injuries in the recruits (P<0.05). However, there was no correlation between military training injuries and the other four movement patterns including rotation stability, shoulder mobility, hurdle step and deep squat (all P>0.05).

  Conclusion  FMS can be used as the prediction index of military training injury of recruits, with 13 points as the critical value. The risk of military training injury of recruits with a score of less than 13 points is higher than that of recruits with a score of more than 13 points. Active leg lift, trunk stability push-up, in-line lunge are negatively correlated with the risk of military training injury.