Movement Screening for Basketball Players: What to Watch

Movement screening for basketball players means watching a player move through simple patterns, a squat, a lunge, a reach on one leg, before you load him in the weight room or the jump program. You compare left with right, note what breaks down, and use what you see to decide where training starts.

The screening method on this page comes from general movement assessment, written for therapists and trainers, not from a basketball program. The basketball pieces, landing checks and the gates in front of jump training, come after it.

A screen is a coaching tool, not a diagnosis. The athletic trainer or physician has the last word on diagnosis, treatment and clearance. The manual behind the method also puts a static posture check, done with as little clothing as acceptable and shoes off, and a walking check under every screen. This page leaves both to the athletic trainer. The strength program that follows a screen is on strength training for basketball, and the warm-up and injury side is on basketball recovery and injury prevention.

What Movement Screening for Basketball Players Looks For

Watch whole movement patterns, not single joints. A single-leg squat tells you more about how the hip works than a side-lying strength test on a table, because the body works in patterns, not one muscle at a time. A screen asks plain physical questions:

• Start and finish. Can he hold the start position and reach the finish, and how does he get from one to the other?
• Flexibility and stability. Does he have the flexibility to make the shape, and the stability to get there?
• Timing. Is the sequence timed right, and can he repeat it?
• Weak and stiff spots. Does the movement expose a region that is stiff or weak, and does the body compensate somewhere else for it?
• Symmetry. Above all, is it the same on the left and the right?

The screens are easy to repeat, need almost no equipment, are built on basic movements and fit every age and fitness level. The case for them is that asymmetries and imbalances feed poor performance and chronic overuse injuries, and that flexibility and stability are the base strength and power are built on.

The same question comes up in basketball training. Teach jumping, landing and pivoting form and use video to catch flawed patterns. A player who jumps better off one foot than the other has a left-right strength gap, and tired players lose their mechanics on cuts, slides and jumps.

Look for the pattern first and the number second.

How to Run a Screen

Watch how the player moves, not how you told him to move. The procedure:

• Show it once, briefly. Show it once and say as little as you can. Do not dictate how he should move. Add basic prompts only if he needs them to complete the pattern.
• Watch the whole thing first. Stand back and take in the whole movement, its sequence and its timing, before you look at any one part.
• Three views. Watch the quality and range of every screen from in front, side-on and from behind.
• The same four notes. Quality and range, symmetry, the point where the movement turns around, and how stable it is.
• Then the regions. Head and neck, shoulders and arms, spine, pelvis and hips, knees, feet.
• Write what you see. Record what happens, not what you expect to see, and say it in plain words, such as the left side struggling with the pattern or a squat that looks wooden from the hips up.

Three views. 1 repeats the screen while the coach (C) watches it from in front, then side-on, then from behind.

Do not interpret a screen on its own. When something "just isn't right," note it and move on through the rest of the screens. The next ones will confirm it or rule it out.

There are two ways to score it:

• Pass or fail. Can he do it or not. Its strength is its simplicity, and it gives clear points to act on.
• Read the quality. Go deeper into how each screen is done. It tells you more and asks far more of the person reading it.

A one-page form fits either: each screen gets pass, incomplete or fail, with a column for comments and the left-right difference.

Say less, watch more, and write it down.

The Screens

Run a short battery of basic movements, each one on both sides. The squat and lunge family:

• Squat with an overhead raise. Feet about shoulder width, a stick held in a wide grip with the arms straight overhead the whole time, then descend as far as possible with the heels down and come back up. The arms overhead show upper-body problems and how the upper and lower body work together.
• Forward lunge with an overhead reach. A forward lunge just past a normal stride, raising the stick overhead with straight arms, then pushing straight back to standing. The rear knee does not need to touch. Alternate legs.
• Backward lunge with an overhead reach. The same, stepping back, with the whole rear foot on the floor if possible. Tightness in the hip flexors and calves shows here.
• Inline lunge. Feet on one line, far enough apart for the rear knee to touch behind the front heel, with a stick held against the back of the head, the spine and between the glutes. The spine stays vertical and on the stick through the lunge. The narrow base tests side-to-side stability.
• Squat with a rotation touch. Feet shoulder width with a line under the middle of the feet, then reach down and touch the line beside one foot with the opposite hand, feet flat and not turned.

The single-leg family:

• Balance reach with the leg. Stand on one foot in the middle of a star taped on the floor and feather-touch the other foot down along each line, returning to the start after each touch. Planting the foot turns it into a lunge.
• Balance reach with the hand. The same star, touching down with the hand opposite the stance foot. It loads the hip far more.
• Multidirectional lunge. Lunge along each line of the star with the stance foot fixed and facing forward, then return.
• Step-over. Stand one foot's distance to the side of an object about knee high, lift the other foot over it without touching it, feather-touch in front, then lift it back over to touch down behind. Repeat continuously.
• Hip rotation in stance. On one leg, rotate around the stance hip to toe-touch with the other foot at the far ends of rotation inward and outward.

Balance reach. 1 stands on one foot in the middle of a star taped on the floor and feather-touches the other foot down along each line, returning to the start after every touch.

Step-over. 1 stands one foot's distance to the side of an object about knee high, lifts the other foot over it to touch down in front, then lifts it back over to touch down behind, without touching the object.

Multidirectional lunge. The stance foot stays fixed in the middle of the star and faces forward while 1 lunges along each line and returns.

Most people should manage three continuous step-over cycles without putting the foot down or grabbing for balance. A player whose trunk leans over the stance leg is showing weak control at the hip and pelvis. A player who rocks the trunk forward and back to balance gets one prompt, keep the trunk vertical, and you watch again.

The wall and upper-body screens:

• Wall rotation. Stand one foot's distance from a wall, elbows bent at 90 degrees, and rotate to touch the wall with both index fingers, then repeat on one leg, three rotations in a row without dabbing the free foot.
• Postural wall hold. Back against the wall, arms flat into a 90-90 position, then overhead with the backs of the hands toward the wall.
• Overhead posterior reach. Two foot-lengths from a wall, on one leg, reach back and overhead with the opposite straight arm to touch the wall, three times off each leg.
• Push-up with rotation. Hold a neutral spine through the push-up, then rotate open one arm while staying aligned. If he cannot open up without collapsing, judge the push-up alone.

A tape measure fixed to the wall and floor also serves for height records and vertical and horizontal jump measurements.

Screen both sides every time, because the difference between them is the finding.

Reading the Results

Put each player in a loose group by range and control, then look for the fault that keeps coming back. The four groups are a recording aid, not a diagnosis:

Act on what repeats:

• Compare the notes. After several screens, sit down with all the notes. The same problems resurface, for example the head pushed forward in the squat and the lunge, or poor trunk stability on the inline lunge and the step-over.
• Fix the repeat first. The one or two areas that keep showing up are the ones to tackle first.
• Send a sore knee to the trainer. Faults link up. In the manual's worked case, a client's knee pain traced back through an inline lunge, a wall rotation and a squat to a possible weak gluteal group on the same side, which further clinical and functional testing confirmed. That tracing is the trainer's work. A player with a sore knee goes to the trainer, and your screen notes go with him.
• Re-screen. Repeat the same screens to check whether the corrective work is working.

The screen helps write the menu, but the coach still chooses the exercises: strengthen weak muscle groups, stretch short ones, correct imbalances, and train posture, stability, timing and three-dimensional flexibility. Any movement can be a screen, and the screen can become the exercise. Single-leg Romanian deadlifts and step-ups are the strength-room answer to a left-right leg gap, and joint-by-joint mobility work is on mobility exercises for basketball.

Chase the fault that repeats, not the one that looked worst once.

Landing and Jump Checks Before Jump Training

Landing matters more than jumping, and a few checks from strength and jump training act as screens before the jump program starts:

• An assessment before plyometrics. Assessments decide training readiness and find movement limits, and plyometrics come only once a player shows a base of strength and body control.
• A strength gate. A squat of twice body weight first, and no plyometrics at all for a player under 16. The drills that follow are on basketball plyometric drills.
• The knee list. Ankle and hip mobility, hamstring and glute strength, quiet balanced landings and cutting footwork.

Three more checks come from a general force-plate jump-testing playbook, not from basketball training:

• Even landings. Force plates read the left and right legs on landing. A player who favors one leg is flagged for injury risk, and in return to play he is not cleared until he lands evenly.
• Two jumps compared. Force plates also compare a countermovement jump with a squat jump from a still start. The countermovement jump should be about 110 percent of the squat jump. Near 1.0 or below, the player lacks concentric strength and power. The squat jump can also show fatigue the countermovement jump hides.
• Find the cause of a low number. Check the output, then how he did it (squat depth, ankle bend, trunk position), then his history (past injuries and body build), before you program.

Without force plates, film jumps and landings to catch flawed patterns. An NBA team's physiotherapist changed how one of its guards ran and changed direction, as injury prevention, inside a stability, strength and power progression. The jump program itself is on how to improve your vertical jump, and the ankle balance and warm-up routines are on basketball warm-up drills.

Clear the landing before you add a single jump.

Pain, Referral and Return to Play

Any screen that produces pain, or brings back painful symptoms, other than discomfort at the end of range, counts as failed. Refer that player. A coach screens, and a qualified professional diagnoses.

• Red flags. A player who cannot bear weight, has major swelling or shows abnormal joint movement needs a medical evaluation. Write down how the injury happened and its symptoms.
• The trainer decides. Report even minor injuries to the trainer at once and follow the treating professional's plan exactly.
• Return by progress, not the calendar. Step up from light activity by measured recovery, not by a date.
• Never play hurt. No player plays injured, whatever the game, without a doctor's permission or full recovery, because most players will insist they are fine.
• Avoid pain in training. Keep pain out of every lift and drill.

The first response and the return-to-play process are on how to handle injuries and recovery, and conditioning tests that complete a preseason check are on basketball conditioning.

When it hurts, the screen is over and the referral starts.

More Strength, Screening and Toughness Guides

• Strength Training for Basketball: Lifts, Loads and Seasons
• Mental Toughness in Basketball: Next Play, Cues, Routines

Back to Basketball Conditioning and every Practice and Conditioning page.

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