Functional Movement Screening in Huntington Beach, CA

You squat, step, lunge, reach, and stabilize the trunk in patterns that show up in daily life and in training. The point is not a score you can brag about. The point is seeing a pattern break in a way you can point at: a heel that lifts, a knee that dives, a shoulder that will not clear a reach, a trunk that twists to cheat a balance. Functional movement screening makes that break visible before it is only a story about an injury.

Clothing should let the joints show. Shoes come off for some patterns if the foot is part of the question. Dr. Tara Kohen demonstrates first so the miss is yours, not a miss of the instructions. Pain during a pattern is recorded separately from a pattern that is simply stiff. Those two results lead to different next steps.

A limited pattern means you cannot reach the shape, and the next step is to find out why: a joint, a muscle length, a balance problem, or a habit. A painful pattern means something hurt while you tried, and that pattern is not used as exercise fuel. It is examined as a complaint. Pushing a painful squat to finish the screen is how a screen becomes an injury.

Shoulder pain that appears when the arm reaches overhead ends that part of the screen and starts a shoulder exam. Knee pain in a lunge does the same. The rest of the screen can often continue in patterns that do not hurt. A screen is allowed to be incomplete. Completing it at the cost of a flare misses the reason you came.

The screen does not tell you that you have a torn cuff, a meniscus injury, or a disc problem. Those names require a history, specific tests, and sometimes imaging ordered by the right clinician. What the screen can say is that a basic pattern is uneven side to side, or that you avoid a shape you need for your sport or your job. That is a direction, not a diagnosis.

A single number hides which pattern failed. Two people with the same total can have opposite problems, one who cannot squat and one who cannot reach. FRI talks about the pattern, not a grade that sounds like a school result. The patterns underneath a total are what the plan can use.

Athletes and workers sometimes screen when nothing currently hurts, because a pattern that is badly uneven is a reasonable place to put practice time. The screen still does not predict your future with a percentage. It gives a short list. Corrective exercise therapy is how that list becomes drills. Gait and postural analysis may follow if the miss shows up more clearly when you walk than when you squat in place.

The screen is repeated later to see if the pattern changed. If it did not, the drill was wrong, too rare, or aimed at the wrong limit. Visits often run 30 to 60 minutes depending on the plan. A screen plus a first drill can fit in that window. A screen with no plan after it is unfinished. A free 20-minute consultation can tell you whether a screen is the right entry.

You will move through several patterns with coaching on the setup, not on how to hide the fault. Expect to feel uncoordinated. That is information. Pain stops the pattern. Stiffness is noted and the pattern still counts. You should see or feel the main miss before you leave, in words you can repeat.

Wear clothes you can squat in, and bring training shoes if you want the screen to resemble practice. The office is out of network, accepts HSA and FSA cards, and provides a superbill. Nobody needs to be a competitive athlete to be screened.

From Huntington Beach, the usual path is the 405 south, then the 73 toll road toward Mission Viejo, exiting toward La Alameda. The suite is 26400 La Alameda, Suite 100, Mission Viejo, CA 92691. Parking is at the building. The clinic is open Monday through Thursday, 9 to 6. A mid-morning visit is the least painful return to the coast. An end-of-day visit means sitting in 405 traffic with whatever we just asked your back to do, so we will tell you if a same-day training session is a bad idea.

Call (949) 312-1754 or book the complimentary 20-minute consultation online if you want to test the fit before a full evaluation. Bring prior imaging if you have it, but do not delay the visit waiting for an MRI you have not been told you need. Many spine and joint problems can be examined without new pictures. If the story sounds like something that needs a physician or an emergency department first, we will say that plainly.

Board sports and volleyball show up as shoulder pain and knee pain. Walking the soft sand and standing in a retail or clinic shift show up as plantar fasciitis and hip pain. Neck symptoms after the drive are worth separating from a shoulder problem, which is why a visit for an arm complaint still includes the neck. Neurodynamic testing is how we check whether a nerve is mechanosensitive rather than guessing from the ZIP code.

Not every Huntington Beach patient is an athlete. Sleep, reflux, and cycle symptoms come in from the same households. Those visits use Functional Medicine tools such as a thyroid panel or GI-MAP when the history supports the test. We do not order a kitchen-sink panel to look thorough. You can read the city overview on the Huntington Beach chiropractor page.

FRI is out of network. Huntington Beach patients commonly use HSA or FSA cards and submit a superbill. Ask your plan what it does with out-of-network chiropractic and lab work before you assume a number. Lab tests, when they are ordered, are a separate cost from the visit. We will tell you what we want to order and why before you are committed to it.

The evaluation is the product. You should leave knowing what we think is going on, what we are not worried about, and what you are supposed to do before the next visit. If the honest answer is that another clinician is the better next step, that is the plan. Drs. Sani and Tara Kohen both see patients here. Their training is described on the about page, and the building is shown on the office page.