Preseason Screening Scores Tracked 10,000-Meter Race Times in 105 Collegiate Runners

A preseason self-screening score for basic movement quality was associated with running performance months later in 105 male collegiate long-distance runners. The relationship was moderate, and the lower-body section of the score sat closest to running performance.

Running Performance over 10,000 meters was associated with scores on a Japanese self-screening test of fundamental physical function, according to a prospective cohort study published October 25, 2026 in BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation.

The study followed 105 male collegiate long-distance runners. Each completed the KOJI AWARENESS test once during the preseason, six months before the All-Japan Ekiden Championships and four months before the 10,000-meter race the authors used as their running performance measure. The research was led by Koji Murofushi of the GENTEN Research Center at the Institute of Science Tokyo, with co-authors at Tohoku University, Waseda University, Aoyama Gakuin University and Dokkyo Medical University Saitama Medical Center.

The design matters for how the result reads. Because the screening happened first and the race came months later, the test scores were not recorded with the outcome already known. That ordering is what distinguishes a prospective cohort from a snapshot taken on race day, though it still leaves an observational study rather than a trial.

Mean race time across the group was 29:37.7, with a standard deviation of 1:05.8. Mean scores were 44.5 on the full test, 12.7 on the Neck-Scapula-Upper Extremity section and 23.1 on the Lower Extremity section. Higher scores went with faster times: the correlation between total score and race time was -0.375, the upper-body section -0.334 and the lower-body section -0.386, all at p less than 0.001.

What the KOJI AWARENESS Test Actually Measures

KOJI AWARENESS is a self-administered screening tool developed in Japan that emphasizes body awareness and what its developers call functional literacy. It assesses mobility, stability, strength and balance, and has been used in schools, companies and sports programs under national initiatives rather than only in elite settings.

For this analysis the authors reported the total score alongside two subcomponents: Neck-Scapula-Upper Extremity and Lower Extremity. The participant questionnaire itself was published as supplementary material rather than reproduced in the article text, so the item-level scoring rules are not visible in the main paper.

The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Tokyo Medical and Dental University, all participants gave informed consent, and funding came from the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development. The authors declared no competing interests. The manuscript was received in August 2025 and accepted in October 2026, roughly two weeks before its online publication as an early-access article.

How the Screening Scores Mapped Onto Running Performance

All three correlations with race time were negative, which in this setting means better. A lower 10,000-meter time is a faster run, so a negative coefficient indicates that higher screening scores accompanied quicker running performance.

The magnitudes cluster in moderate territory. A correlation of -0.386 for the lower-body section means the screening score and race time move together to a meaningful but partial degree. Most of the variation in running performance across these 105 runners is left unexplained by the screen, which is what one would expect given everything else that shapes a 10,000-meter time.

Why the Lower-Extremity Score Stood Out

The lower-body section produced both the strongest correlation and the clearest signal in the multiple regression models, where the authors report that preseason scores remained significantly associated with running performance after their candidate covariates were considered. Those covariates were age, body mass index and prior running-related injuries.

That the lower body carried the clearest signal fits an event built on repeated single-leg loading, but the study did not test a mechanism. Any explanation for why that section tracked running performance more closely remains an inference rather than a finding.

The regression coefficients and model statistics sit in supplementary material rather than the main text, so the size of the adjusted effect is not available from the article body. The direction and significance are reported; the precise magnitude after adjustment is not.

What a Correlation Near Minus 0.4 Can and Cannot Carry

Observational associations of this size are common in sport science and are often over-read. The study can say that runners who scored higher on a preseason movement screen tended to race faster months later. It cannot say that raising a score would improve running performance, because nobody was assigned to train differently.

Reverse explanations also remain open. Runners who were already fitter, more experienced or free of recent injury may simply have moved better on a screening test, which would produce the same correlation without the screen adding anything causal. The authors use associational language throughout, and their stated conclusion is the modest one: the test may serve as a practical indicator of preseason physical function.

Where a Preseason Screen Fits in a Training Year

The practical appeal of a self-administered screen is logistical. A squad of 105 runners can complete one without laboratory equipment, which is not true of the gas-analysis testing that underpins most aerobic benchmarking. Fitness Living Magazine has covered the effort to put that laboratory work on a common footing in a framework standardizing VO2 max across five exercise tests, and a movement screen answers a different and cheaper question.

It also sits alongside the monitoring tools coaches already use. Our report on countermovement jump fatigue testing varying widely across 117 studies described the opposite problem: a popular test applied so inconsistently that results are hard to pool. A screen with national scoring conventions at least starts from a shared scale.

How Runners and Coaches Might Read It

None of the following is individualized advice, and anyone with pain, a recent injury or a medical condition should work with a clinician or qualified coach rather than a questionnaire.

• A preseason score is a monitoring input, not a selection tool. A moderate correlation with running performance is too loose to rank athletes.
• Movement quality and running performance travel together in this cohort, but training volume, experience and injury history were not disentangled.
• Repeating a screen across a season would say more than a single reading, which is what this study design could not do.
• Low scores on a section are worth investigating with a professional rather than treated as a diagnosis.

Form and mechanics work deserves the same caution. When Fitness Living Magazine reported that 12 weeks of gait retraining steadied running motion but raised loading rates, the lesson was that changing how someone moves can trade one outcome for another. And in rehabilitation, lengthening exercise cut hamstring return-to-play time by 28 days across 14 trials, a reminder that specific interventions, not general screening scores, are what carry measured effects on running performance.