Load has to go somewhere
The core mechanical argument is simple. Every task requires a certain amount of total joint motion. If one joint cannot supply its share, the neighbouring joints supply it instead — usually joints that are built for stability rather than range.
Repeat that for months and the pattern becomes the default. The restricted joint stays quiet; the borrowing joint accumulates work it was never designed for. That is why screening looks at the whole chain rather than only at the part that is complaining.
Asymmetry: the finding worth acting on first
If your left and right sides score differently, you already have a preferred solution to the pattern, and preferences intensify under fatigue and load. A screen that records each side separately turns that into a target: prioritise the restricted side, then retest the gap rather than assuming it closed.
Symmetrical mediocrity is usually a training-history problem. One-sided restriction is usually a history problem — old injury, sport bias, occupational habit — and it is the more urgent of the two.
Movement preparation beats the generic warm-up
A general warm-up raises temperature and heart rate. Movement preparation does that and also opens the specific ranges the session will demand and rehearses the control you want to use in them.
Because a SmartyMove program is built from your own findings, the five-minute daily routine works as movement preparation without any modification: run it before your main session and you train in the range you just opened, which is also the most reliable way to keep that range.
- Before training: run the routine as preparation, then train.
- On rest days: run it on its own — frequency is what changes range.
- After a rescan: expect the routine to change as priorities shift.
What screening will not do
It will not diagnose an injury, identify tissue damage, or tell you whether a specific structure is at risk. It will not replace assessment by a physiotherapist or physician, and it should not be used to push through pain.
SmartyMove is explicit about this boundary: report pain during a test and that test scores zero, the affected sub-score is capped, and the guidance is to seek qualified help rather than to keep training around it.