Are you asking for exercise advice from your doctor?

A study that was recently published by the British Journal of Sports Medicine reported that future doctors in the UK are not taught about exercise. The researcher stresses that it is important for medical students to be taught about exercise to bridge the gap with their training in medicine. This is to allow future doctors to familiarize with exercise recommendations in regards to helping combat diseases that are linked to insufficient exercise.

In my personal experience interacting and having medical doctors as my personal training clients, majority of the doctors I know are not aware about exercise science, or should I even say not qualified to advice their patients on exercise.

You may ask why? Aren’t’ doctors … well doctors? They should know everything when it comes to human condition?

This is an issue I personally have concerned about since 4 years ago. It is not unusual for the general public to seek advice and opinions from doctors in regards to exercise, and because doctors are generally perceived as the all knowing when it comes to human conditions, their opinions are taken seriously – although they are not expert opinions when it comes to exercise, unless they are also trained formally in exercise science, holding a fitness certification for instance.

However if you are getting screen for health and medical risk associated with exercise, doctors would be the correct channel that you should head to. As a fitness professional, I’ve trained myriad of clients - each with their own physical limitations and some diagnosed with various medical concerns. Those that come to me with medical concerns, I’ll work closely with my client’s doctor to understand their medical condition before planning their exercise program. Can you spot the difference in the scope of practice between a doctor and a personal trainer?

It is essential that we understand a Personal Trainer is trained to design exercise program based on their knowledge of biomechanics, physiology, anatomy etc based on exercise science. While doctors are trained to diagnose and plan a prognosis based on medical science. It’s a huge difference between medical science and exercise science although both are dealing with human conditions.