Hey, High School Athletes! Avoid Injury with a Functional Movement Screening at Fitness4Life!

School is back in session all around the country, and with the beginning of a new year comes the beginning of new school sports seasons. Approximately 7.2 million high school students will be participating in several sports this year, either purely for fun or perhaps emulating their favorite professional athlete. Oddly enough, high school students are injured at about the same rate as professional athletes.

Injury can occur anywhere, but it is especially prominent in sports activities. Don’t let this deter youfrom allowing your adolescent to participate in high school sports; there is an efficient and simple way to help prevent future injuries, and it can be done here at Fitness4Life!

Functional Movement Screening (FMS) is an excellent and easy process to go through which helps prevent possible injury in the future in easily injured areas such as knees, shoulders, and extremities. It may sound fancy and potentially terrifying, but FMS is only a screen that helps document how your body moves compared to how your body is supposed to move. By undergoing this screen, you will be able to find out your weaknesses and any dangerous movement patterns your body does, which could later lead down the path of injury.

If you feel like you could go without taking this easy evaluation, consider these following statistics: Each year high school athletes account for an estimated 2 million injuries. Doctors are seen for injuries such as these approximately 500,000 times a year, and 30,000 of the injuries result in hospitalization.

In short, about 20 percent of adolescent athletes have injuries each year, and one in four of the injuries is deemed as serious.

Mark Slaughter, PT, here at Fitness4Life, is one of the four certified people in the St. Louis area who can perform the screening.  Flanked by years of training and experience in working with thousands of patients, Slaughter can provide the quality care you need for a sports injury, working with common injuries such as shoulders and knees and complex injuries dealing with the spinal cord and ligaments.

FMS isn’t just limited to students; adults are also welcomed to try the screening! Even the fittest adults can be prone to injury, especially in the lower back region.  While exercising moderately and warming up can help avoid any potential problems, getting an FMS is a crucial part of staying fit, healthy, and accident-free.

So what are you waiting for? Lace up those trainers and head on down to Fitness4Life to get an FMS before you start working out or your next school sports season! Your body will thank you for it!