The 5-Movement Screen Every Adult Should Pass

Squat depth, single-leg balance, overhead reach, hip hinge, and gait — what failing each one tells us about your next injury.

Most injuries don't come out of nowhere. They show up in movement screens months — sometimes years — before they show up in pain. The pattern is consistent: the body compensates for a small dysfunction until it can't, and then it breaks somewhere.

The five-movement screen below isn't proprietary. It's distilled from the Functional Movement Screen (FMS), Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA), and Y-Balance Test — frameworks used across professional sports and rehab settings. It takes about 15 minutes to run on yourself and tells you where your next injury is most likely to come from.

1. Bodyweight squat to parallel **The test:** Feet shoulder-width, toes forward, arms overhead, descend until thighs are parallel to the floor. Hold 3 seconds. Stand.

**Pass:** Heels stay down. Knees track over toes (no inward collapse). Torso stays within 30 degrees of vertical. Arms stay overhead. No pain.

**Fail modes and what they mean:**
- *Heels lift* → ankle dorsiflexion restriction. Limits running mechanics, drives Achilles tendinopathy, knee pain.
- *Knees collapse inward* → glute medius weakness or hip internal rotation deficit. Predicts ACL/MCL injuries and patellofemoral pain.
- *Torso drops below 30 degrees* → thoracic extension restriction or core deficiency. Drives low back pain under load.
- *Arms fall forward* → lat tightness or thoracic stiffness. Drives shoulder impingement.

**Homework if you fail:** ankle mobility work (banded distraction, half-kneeling dorsiflexion), thoracic foam rolling, glute activation circuits.

2. Single-leg balance, 30 seconds, eyes closed **The test:** Stand on one foot, arms crossed over chest, eyes closed. Hold 30 seconds. Repeat both sides.

**Pass:** Foot stays down, hip stays level, no visible sway by 20 seconds. Both sides symmetrical.

**Fail modes and what they mean:**
- *Foot touches down before 10 seconds* → significant proprioceptive deficit. Predicts ankle sprains and falls.
- *Hip drops on the standing leg* → glute medius weakness. Predicts knee pain and ITB syndrome.
- *Significant asymmetry between sides (>10 seconds difference)* → unilateral dysfunction worth investigating. Often correlates with prior unresolved ankle or knee injuries.

Single-leg balance is one of the strongest predictors of lower-extremity injury in the research. Most adults can't pass it. The good news: it improves quickly with daily practice (start at the kitchen sink with light fingertip support, progress to no support, then eyes closed).

3. Overhead reach with arms straight **The test:** Stand against a wall — heels, glutes, upper back, and head all touching. Raise straight arms overhead, palms facing in, and try to touch the wall behind you without arching your low back or shrugging.

**Pass:** Backs of hands touch the wall. Low back stays flat against wall. Ribs stay down. Shoulders don't shrug toward ears.

**Fail modes and what they mean:**
- *Hands don't reach the wall* → thoracic extension restriction or lat tightness. Drives rotator cuff issues.
- *Low back arches off the wall to make hands touch* → thoracic stiffness compensated by lumbar extension. Drives chronic low back pain.
- *Ribs flare forward* → core dysfunction and breathing pattern issue.
- *Shoulders shrug* → upper trap dominance over scapular stabilizers. Drives neck pain and impingement.

**Homework:** thoracic mobility (foam roller extensions, prayer reach), lat stretching, scapular control work (wall slides, prone Ys).

4. Hip hinge with a dowel on the spine **The test:** Place a broomstick or dowel along the spine — back of head, upper back, and tailbone all touching. Holding the dowel in place, hinge at the hips, push the hips backward, and try to bring your torso parallel to the floor.

**Pass:** All three contact points stay on the dowel throughout the hinge. Knees soft but mostly straight. Hamstrings are the limiter, not the back.

**Fail modes and what they mean:**
- *Lumbar spine separates from the dowel (lower back rounds)* → the patient is bending from the spine instead of the hips. Classic precursor to disc complaints, lifting injuries, and chronic low back pain.
- *Upper back/head separates (thoracic rounds)* → thoracic stiffness, often pairs with desk-worker forward-head posture.

If you fail this, you are loading your spine — not your hips — every time you bend down to pick something up, sit on a couch, or load a barbell. Fixing it is one of the highest-leverage things an adult can train.

5. Gait analysis (50-foot walk) **The test:** Walk 50 feet in a straight line at your normal pace. Then walk 50 feet back. Have someone watch — or video yourself — from front, side, and behind.

**Pass:** Heel strike is quiet. Arm swing is symmetrical. Hips stay level (no drop on stance leg). Foot pushes off the big toe, not the outside edge. Stride length is symmetrical.

**Fail modes and what they mean:**
- *Loud heel strike* → poor shock absorption. Drives shin splints, knee pain, hip impingement.
- *Hip drop on stance leg* → glute medius weakness. Same downstream issues as the balance test failures.
- *Asymmetric stride length* → unilateral hip mobility deficit, often a leftover from prior injury.
- *Reduced arm swing on one side* → thoracic rotation restriction or shoulder dysfunction.

Gait is your most-repeated movement of the day — most people take 5,000-10,000 steps. Whatever leak exists in your gait, you're rehearsing it thousands of times a day.

What to do with the results Pass all five → injury risk is meaningfully lower than the average adult, and you can train hard with confidence.

Fail one → that's your homework. Most single failures resolve in 4-6 weeks with focused daily work.

Fail two or more → strongly consider a one-time movement screen with a doctor of physical therapy. The interactions between failures matter more than any single deficit, and pattern recognition is what we do.

The screen isn't perfect, but it's free, takes 15 minutes, and catches the kind of problems that turn into ER visits if you ignore them long enough.