My plans to prove Exercise is Medicine at LIW

- John Searle -  

As anyone who has read my blog before will know that in my role as Chief Medical Officer I work to bridge the gap between the fitness sector and medical profession and ultimately establish exercise as part of the routine prevention and management of chronic disease.

I am pleased that we are making progress with both of these aims, however it is important that we take time out to remind our members and the wider physical activity sector of what every club can do in their own local community to work with the health service…………….and what better place to talk to the industry than LIW?

This is why I will be working with Prof. Alfonso Jimenez and Ben Jones to deliver the FIA’s “Exercise is Medicine” seminar! The seminar has not come about by chance rather we have carefully selected our topics and speakers based on what the sector needs to do in order to move forward. From when I first took the role as Chief Medical Officer and even when I first trained as an exercise professional it seemed clear that there were three areas (at least) where we needed to concentrate our efforts:

·         The role of exercise (and the fitness sector) in the prevention of disease

·         The delivery of exercise in the management of chronic disease

·         How to adapt our programmes & professionals to work with patients

Alfonso will kick the seminar off and will answer the first question with some in disputable evidence. Since the 19^th century we have known about how exercise is essential to maintaining a healthy lifestyle  and this has been proven in a number of peer reviewed journals, however there is little on how the fitness sector is effective in delivery it. In short during the journey from the laboratory to the gym floor we seem to lose our evidence base and then struggle to convince commissioners of our ability to create long term physical activity change. Alfonso, will explain how the work of the newly created FIA Research Institute with the University of Greenwich is set up to change the evidence base, and how operators can get involved.

I will follow Alfonso (no easy task), and will discuss an issue I am very familiar with – the delivery of exercise in the management of chronic disease. For the last 10 years I have used a structured exercise programme to help manage my own Rheumatoid Arthritis, and I have also delivered exercise for my own patients with chronic disease, and most recently I have chaired a group with the medical community, the Joint Consultative Forum, attempting to develop National Standards for Exercise Referral.

This leads nicely into the final presentation to be delivered by Ben Jones. I first met Ben when he delivered my training to become a personal trainer many years ago, and he has been involved in writing training programmes to enable professionals to work with patients ever since. Ben is a founding member of the Joint Consultative Forum and will explain how professionals must change their communication, planning, and programmes when working patients. Patients expect a different service to the traditional gym user so we need to deliver one, and Ben will tell us how.

Lastly, we will all be on trial as Technogym will conduct a panel session and get things started with a few case studies showing what the fitness sector can do!

I hope to see you at 2pm on Tuesday 20^th, so we can review the progress made and more importantly plan for the future.

If you any questions regarding the details of the event please visit http://www.liw.co.uk/education