THE IMPORTANCE OF MASTERING FUNCTIONAL MOVEMENTS

Good fundamental movement skills are associated with health, wellbeing and highlevel sports performance. These movement skills are developed from childhood and become integrated in various movements which make up real life sporting movements.

All sport specific movement patterns can be seen as an extension of good fundamental movement skills and this justifies their emphasis in strength and conditioning programmes It’s not by chance that the best players in the world are all great movers.

Having sound movement mechanics enables you to have greater balance, move faster and more gracefully, use energy more efficiently and perhaps most importantly be more resilient to injury thanks to a greater capacity to safely absorb and distribute force throughout the body.

Ensuring sound movement mechanics before adding weight or resistance to the movement is of paramount importance. Performing movements such as the bodyweight squat with poor technique and then adding weight is a recipe for disaster in terms of further increasing injury risk and hindering the benefits which could come from performing the exercise with additional load in the first place.

Without mastering functional movement skills, your ability to perform athletic movements with stability, speed and precision will be affected, which could in turn determine the level of football you can achieve. The higher the level of football, the more athletic the players and the more complex movements they can perform well.

Think about Ronaldo’s stepovers, Zlatan’s overhead kicks or Messi’s pirouettes on the ball. It’s all made possible through sound movement mechanics along with possessing a vast catalogue of movement patterns that can be accessed in the blink of an eye.

This can best be developed in younger players by ensuring that they take part in a wide variety of sports which demand different types of movement. Specialising in one sport too early could limit the opportunity to acquire movement skills which will be required to make it to the highest level of the sport you want to specialise in.

Functional movement skills can be split into 4 categories: Movement, Manipulation, Stabilisation and Locomotion.

A great way to regularly brush up on your functional movement technique is to include some of the exercises in your training and match day warm ups. Most people have heard of the RAMP warmup method (raise, activate, mobilise, potentiate), below we have provided a warm up example which follows the RAMP method and incorporates some of these key functional movements.

By doing this you can ensure you’re perfecting these movements at least 2-3 times per week:

RAISE:

Elevates body temperature, heart rate, respiration rate, blood flow and joint fluid viscosity.

EXAMPLES:

• 5 mins low intensity cycling, jogging, rowing or skipping (has the added benefit of a plyometric stimulus).

• Dribbling with the ball at 50% intensity ensuring lots of changes of direction, stopstarts and using every part of both feet.

ACTIVATE AND MOBILISE: Activate key muscle groups and mobilise joints and ranges of motion (ROM) used in the sporting activity.

EXAMPLES:

• Lunges, single leg deadlifts, inchworms, bear crawls, overhead squats.

• Heel kicks, knees up, open/close gates, kick throughs, kickbacks, kicks across the body, lateral leg swings.

POTENTIATE: Increase the intensity of exercise to a point at which it feeds into the intensity of the training session or match they are about to perform. This could involve selecting activities which may contribute to a super-maximal effect and therefore increase performance via a post-activation potentiation (PAP) effect.

EXAMPLES:

• Pogo jumps, box jumps, knee tuck jumps, skipping, lateral hop and holds.

• 20m sprints, sprints with changes of direction.

• Up for a header and sprint in different direction, up for a header and pause still upon landing before turning and sprinting, lay flat on the floor and press yourself up to standing before sprinting to a cone.

As you can see, the RAMP method provides a great structure that you can follow to ensure a thorough warm up for both pitch and gym work.

For match days and pitch sessions you should also incorporate multi-directional ball work through activities such as:

• Pass and move

• Rondo’s

• Keep ball

• Position specific work like shooting, heading and long/short ball passing and receiving

Breakdown Of A Squat

The first movement listed in the table above is the squat. This refers to the bodyweight version of the exercise. The reason this movement is first and valued so much is due to its multi-joint nature. By performing an overhead squat (squat with arms raised in the air), we can include all key joints of the body and use the exercise as a movement screen to identify common movement faults. You’ll find a video analysis of the overhead squat in the fitness section of the Matchfit Conditioning app.

Common Overhead Squatting Faults

• Heel comes off the floor = Foot and ankle mobility issue

• Knees cave in = Knee stability issue

• Lack of depth and tightness or pinching in the front of the hip = Hip mobility issue

• Rounding of the lower back = Lumbar spine stability issue

• Unable to extend through upper back = Thoracic spine mobility issue

• Arms falling forwards = Shoulder mobility issue

KEY POINT: An issue in any of the areas or movements listed above can have a knock-on effect throughout the body, limiting athletic performance and increasing injury risk. It’s worth mentioning that even if you’ve never really struggled with injuries, consider yourself very athletic and are already playing at a high level, identifying a weakness through the overhead squat movement screen and addressing it could unlock an even higher level of athleticism for you.