For those that wish to review the study, look here.

I first had this conversation with a colleague and then saw this post on Jeff Cubos’s Blog.
This study is well performed, but poorly designed.  The premise, as Jeff points out, has significant flaws.  They are taking a “screening test” for injury risk assessment and claiming to use it to measure athletic performance.  To compare how odd this is let’s think about drawing blood and measuring lipid profiles to determine the fastest runner.

A comment left on Jeff’s blog notes that improvement in the FMS screen may be implied to lead to improved athletic performance.  While not the intended goal of the screen (it is designed to test for risk of future injury), I can see that this would make sense.  For example, an athlete who scores a 13 (out of 21) and then participates in a corrective exercise program and a few weeks later able to score a 16 (with no asymmetries); I would assume that some translation to on the field performance may exist.  (Although again, this is not the goal of the FMS test.)

Parchmann & McBride not only begin their study with a flawed concept but seem to bias the test results as well.  In comparing a movement literacy test (FMS) to a power-based movement (1RM back squat) the researchers chose to use the following as benchmarks: sprint times (10m, 20m), vertical jump, T-test, and golf club head speed.

Exceptional workout power; limited performance

Suffice it to say that these are all power based movements.  The most powerful athlete will likely get the highest marks on each of these tests and therefore it is expected that a 1RM test correlates better than the FMS test.  However, this does not correlate well into determination of the best athlete.  [Think Brian Bosworth vs. Brian Urlacher].

Great workout; exceptional performance

To put this another way, I can swing a golf club really fast… however the score at the end of my round is nothing I care to brag about.  Swing velocity is not a good indicator of the best athlete, it’s indicative of the most powerful.

To recap:

• I applaud Parchmann & McBride‘s effort to test the FMS screen.  We should challenge all concepts and make sure that we’re using what works best and not holding onto sacred cows or simply doing what “should work”.
• This study has significant logical flaws as the FMS test is misinterpreted from the beginning and the authors base their conclusions on the flawed premise that the most powerful athlete is the best athlete.
• As I suspect there is a mild degree of correlation from the FMS score to ‘coordinated movements’, I would be curious to see this compared to putting or chipping accuracy, or perhaps driving closest to a center line.  These non-power skills likely have little correlation to 1RM and may have some correlation to FMS scores. However we must remember that this was never the stated (or intended) purpose of the FMS test.