title: Can fitness and movement quality prevent back injury in elite task force police officers? A 5-year longitudinal study.
abstract: Elite police work has bursts of intense physically demanding work requiring high levels of fitness, or capacity, and movement competency; which are assumed to increase one's injury resilience. The purpose of this study was to follow members of an elite police force (N = 53) to test whether back injuries (N = 14) could be predicted from measures of fitness and movement quality. Measures of torso endurance, relative and absolute strength, hip ROM and movement quality using the Functional Movement Screen(TM) and other dynamic movement tests were obtained from every officer at baseline. When variables were grouped and considered holistically, rather than individually, back injury could be predicted. Seven variables best predicted those who would suffer a back injury (64% sensitivity and 95% specificity for an overall concordance of 87%). Overall, the ability to predict back injury was not high, suggesting that there is more complexity to this relationship than is explained with the variables tested here. Practitioner Summary: Members of elite police forces have exposure to intense physically demanding work. Increased levels of fitness and movement competency have been assumed to increase injury resilience. However, complexity in the interactions between exposure, movement competency, training, fitness and injury may occlude the true relationship between these variables.
authors.affiliation: a Spine Biomechanics Laboratories, University of Waterloo , 200 University Ave. West, Waterloo , Ontario N2L 3G1 , Canada.
authors.forename: Stuart
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: McGill
authors.affiliation: a Spine Biomechanics Laboratories, University of Waterloo , 200 University Ave. West, Waterloo , Ontario N2L 3G1 , Canada.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Frost
authors.affiliation: b FITS , Toronto , Ontario , Canada.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lam
authors.affiliation: c Toronto Police Services , Toronto , Ontario , Canada.
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Finlay
authors.affiliation: c Toronto Police Services , Toronto , Ontario , Canada.
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Darby
authors.affiliation: a Spine Biomechanics Laboratories, University of Waterloo , 200 University Ave. West, Waterloo , Ontario N2L 3G1 , Canada.
authors.forename: Jordan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cannon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D026683:Advisory Committees; D019567:Back Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005080:Exercise Test; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement; D053580:Muscle Strength; D060051:Occupational Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology*; D010807:Physical Endurance; D010809:Physical Fitness; D016495:Police; D011446:Prospective Studies; D065840:Protective Factors; D016059:Range of Motion, Articular; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: FMS; assessment; back pain; fitness; predicting injury; range of motion; strength