Influence of Body Composition on Functional Movement Among Police Officers

Research indicates that the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) can be used to measure functional movement quality and characterize musculoskeletal injury risk in tactical populations. Although body composition has been linked to chronic disease in police officers, the link between body composition and functional movement quality has not been explored in this population. As such, the purposes of the study were to examine: (a) the effect of body mass index (BMI) on functional movement, and (b) determine the significance of fat mass (FM) and fat free mass (FFM) in predicting functional movement among active-duty police officers. Thirty-five active- duty police officers (31 male, 4 female; mean ±SD, age: 33.4 ±9.4 years, height: 177.4 ± 8.0 cm, weight: 88.4 ± 15.3 kg) were recruited to participate in this study, as part of a larger study on police fitness. All demographic data, BMI, FM, FFM, and FMS composite score (FMS CS) were obtained over two data collection sessions. With age held as a significant covariate, the results of the one-way ANCOVA revealed no significant effect of BMI category on FMS CS (p = 0.077). The linear regression analysis results suggest that FM and FFM contributed 36.9% variance in FMS CS while controlling for age (p < 0.001). FM was a significant individual predictor of FMS CS (p < 0.001), while FFM was not a significant individual predictor of FMS CS (p = 0.111). The current results reinforce the importance of police officers body composition management for health and functional movement quality across a career.