MOVEMENT, PERFORMANCE & INJURY PREVENTION · STAFFORD, VA
Care That Doesn't Wait For Something To Break
Most physical therapy begins after the injury. This area of care begins before it, with a structured look at how you move, an honest reading of what that can and cannot predict, and a plan that raises your capacity above your demands. For athletes, active adults, and the people whose bodies are their equipment.
THE BASICS
What Is Performance And Prevention Physical Therapy?
Performance and prevention physical therapy is care that starts before something breaks: a structured assessment of how you move (mobility, strength, balance and load tolerance) followed by a specific plan to close the gaps it finds. Divine Physical Therapy provides mobile, one-on-one physical therapy primarily throughout Stafford County, Virginia, with select nearby visits considered by arrangement.
This care is designed for people who want a baseline, are changing activity demands, or want help addressing measurable limitations before they become more disruptive. Screening cannot predict or prevent every injury, but it can guide individualized training, rehabilitation and load-management decisions.
Prevention is the most over-promised word in fitness. What follows is what the evidence actually supports, and where a physical therapist genuinely earns a place in it. Reviewed by Dr. Thea Paige, PT, DPT, CMTPT, PCES (about Dr. Paige).
WHAT IT PRODUCES
What Does A Movement Screen Actually Tell You?
A movement screen is a structured set of tests (mobility, balance, strength, and control) performed while nothing is injured. It establishes your baseline, identifies limitations and asymmetries worth training, and flags the small number of findings that deserve closer examination. What it produces is not a verdict but a map: which capacities sit below your demands, and which are fine.
The assessment may draw from movement tasks and measures learned through Dr. Paige's training in the SFMA and Y-Balance systems, along with range of motion, strength, balance, functional tasks and sport- or activity-specific testing. Divine does not advertise or provide a standardized FMS certification-based screen. The movement screening page explains what these tools can and cannot tell you.
THE HONEST LIMITS
Can Screening Actually Prevent Injury?
Movement screening should not be marketed as an injury-prediction test. Systematic reviews have found limited or inconsistent ability for movement-quality screens such as the FMS to predict who will later be injured, especially across different sports and populations.1,2 A previous injury is a well-established risk factor for future injury in several athletic populations, but injury risk is multifactorial rather than determined by one score.3
The value of screening is in what happens next: identifying modifiable deficits, matching training to current capacity, progressing load appropriately, and completing rehabilitation before returning fully to demanding activity. The screen helps direct that work; it does not replace clinical judgment.
SELECTED EVIDENCE: Rapid or poorly tolerated changes in training load can contribute to injury risk, but there is no single workload ratio that reliably predicts injury for every athlete. International sports-medicine guidance supports individualized load progression and monitoring of training, recovery and athlete response rather than relying on one cutoff.4
THE YEARLY CHECK-IN
What Is The Annual Movement Physical?
The Annual Movement Physical is a 75-minute movement-health assessment designed to establish and compare useful baselines over time. It may include range of motion, strength, balance, functional movement and activity-specific measures, followed by education and an individualized plan. The full explanation lives on the Annual Movement Physical page.
It is intended for people who want a proactive check-in rather than waiting for pain to become the only reason to assess movement. A screening result does not diagnose future injury or guarantee prevention.
THREE GROUPS
Who Is This Care For?
Many injuries are influenced by factors that can be assessed or discussed before symptoms become limiting: previous injury, strength or mobility deficits, training changes, recovery demands and movement tolerance. The goal is not to predict the future; it is to identify what can reasonably be improved now.
Athletes & Active Adults
From youth soccer players to marathoners to lifters in their sixties, served through injury prevention for athletes, where training load, growth, and return-to-training decisions live.
Military, First Responders & Healthcare Shift Workers
Served through tactical and shift-worker care, built for people whose load is unpredictable and whose recovery is not chosen.
Desk Workers, New Parents & Everyone In Between
Served by the screening and Annual Movement Physical work above; a baseline check-in, not a fix for a specific injury.
THE MOBILE MODEL
How Does Prevention Work In A Mobile Practice?
Assessments are performed one-on-one with Dr. Paige, typically in a 75-minute mobile session. The visit is structured to allow time for testing, explanation of relevant findings and development of an appropriate plan. Because the practice is part of the full range of physical therapy services Dr. Paige provides, anything a screen uncovers can be treated by the person who found it, without a referral loop or a handoff.
Education is a central part of the visit. The goal is for you to understand the findings, how they relate to your activity demands and which priorities are most useful to address.
FOUR WAYS IN
Where To Start, Depending On Who You Are.
The Annual Movement Physical
The yearly baseline for anyone who wants their movement checked the way their bloodwork is: once a year, measured, compared, planned.
Movement Screening
A one-time structured screen, before a new sport, a new job, a new training block, or after a long layoff.
Injury Prevention For Athletes
Load management, off-season screening and growth-stage care for competitive and recreational athletes, youth to masters.
Tactical & Shift-Worker Care
Military, first responders, and healthcare workers receive a 10 community discount for unpredictable loads and fixed schedules.
EVIDENCE & FURTHER READING
What Supports This Approach?
Movement screening is best used to establish baselines and guide individualized programming, not to promise injury prediction. Injury risk reflects multiple interacting factors, including prior injury, training exposure, recovery, sport demands and individual capacity.
Research is provided for education and clinical context. Findings from a study population do not predict an individual's outcome.
01. Dorrel BS, et al. (2015). Evaluation of the Functional Movement Screen as an Injury Prediction Tool Among Active Adult Populations: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Sports Health. PubMed.
02. Moran RW, et al. (2017). Do Functional Movement Screen composite scores predict subsequent injury? A systematic review with meta-analysis. Br J Sports Med. PubMed.
03. Green B, et al. (2020). Recalibrating the risk of hamstring strain injury: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Br J Sports Med. Previous hamstring injury was associated with substantially greater future hamstring-injury risk. PubMed.
04. Soligard T, et al. (2016). How much is too much? (Part 1) International Olympic Committee consensus statement on load in sport and risk of injury. Br J Sports Med.
YOUR QUESTIONS, ANSWERED
Frequently Asked
KEEP READING
Where To Go Next
THE YEARLY BASELINE
The Annual Movement Physical
A yearly physical for how you move, the baseline that catches problems while they're cheap.
FOR ATHLETES
Injury Prevention For Athletes
Training load, youth growth, and the findings that become next season's injury.
BEGIN WITH A DISCOVERY CALL
Curious What A Baseline Would Show?
Start with a free discovery call. Dr. Paige will tell you whether a screen, an Annual Movement Physical, or nothing at all is the right next step for where you are.