• Jennifer S Emberton, Benjamin G Adams, Brittany R Hotaling, Kristen L Zosel, Stephen M Grist, Nancy Henderson, Joseph Kardouni, and Richard B Westrick.
• Military Performance Division, US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, Natick, MA 01760, USA.
• Mil Med. 2024 Mar 26.

IntroductionSoldiers must be able to perform a multitude of physically demanding tasks as part of their regular duty, but their physical readiness is often degraded due to pain and musculoskeletal injury (MSKI). The presence of pain with movement has been associated with increased MSKI risk in Soldiers. Improved awareness of the prevalence of painful movements in uninjured Soldiers could help inform Army injury mitigation efforts. The purpose of this study was to identify the prevalence of pain with movement in a population of healthy active duty Soldiers.Materials And MethodsThe Selective Functional Movement Assessment-Top Tier Movements (SFMA-TTM), active range of motion (AROM) of the hips and shoulders, and the elicitation of pain with movement were measured in 268 healthy US Army Soldiers. Descriptive statistics were generated for the number of painful movements for each measure and inferential statistics; independent t-test and one-way independent analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used for analysis of the other measures.ResultsGreater than half (59%) of the participants reported pain with at least 1 movement and more than 41% reported pain with 2 or more movements. Soldiers reported a mean of 1.35 painful movements on the SFMA-TTM assessment and a mean of 1.54 painful AROM movements.ConclusionsPain with functional movement patterns was common across a sample of uninjured Soldiers. The presence of pain with movement warrants further evaluation as it may impact a Soldier's physical performance, risk for future injury, and overall quality of life.© The Association of Military Surgeons of the United States 2024. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site–for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.

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