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In This Issue...
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Health
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The Changing Face of Fitness
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The Changing Face of Fitness
An Expanding View of the Role of Fitness in Medicine
By Barbara MacFarlane, MD
Lifesport & Wellness Center
Fitness was once reserved for athletes. Sports Medicine was born out of the desire to promote fitness, injury treatment and prevention, and training for competitive athletes. The very beginnings of Sports Medicine’s presence at the Olympics came about through the efforts of Dr. J. C. Kennedy for the Canadian Olympic team in the summer of 1972. After Dr. Kennedy observed his daughter in competition in the 1968 Olympics, he formulated the idea of having Sports Medicine support for athletes. He began the first Sports Medicine Clinic in North America at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada.
The same year, Kenneth H. Cooper of Dallas wrote the book called Aerobics. Thus the term for doing aerobic-type exercise was born. Dr. Cooper went on to start the Cooper Institute and has done years of research regarding exercise and disease prevention. The book Aerobics was the impetus for encouraging the fitness boom for healthy young adults in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Also at the University of Western Ontario, Dr. Peter Rechnitzner was beginning to convince his post-heart attack patients to start regular aerobic exercise (jogging) in the late 1960s. This was the seed to the beginning of Cardiac Rehabilitation in North America. Fitness was for the sick as well.
Due to these histories of Sports Medicine, Aerobics, and Cardiac Rehabilitation, it has been accepted for the last 35 years that fitness is for athletes, for healthy young adults, and for the sick who are recovering from heart attacks. However, the face of fitness is changing. This is a result of many factors.
The Changing Face of Fitness
In the last 35 years, Sports Medicine has evolved. It is no longer exclusively for the very competitive athlete. It’s now for the recreational athlete as well as patients who just desire to improve physically in the most efficient, effective way possible, one that also addresses whatever medical problems they have.
It has completely changed from what its name implies.
Sports Medicine today encompasses knowledge of how to treat patients with all medical problems â€" addressing those medical problems while at the same time optimizing not only daily functional activities but also promoting increased activity. It is understanding and addressing the full scope of medicine while a patient initiates exercise, recovers from an injury, prevents further injury and maintains and improves health. The scope of knowledge is very broad and not even understood by most physicians.
For instance, the number of young healthy adults frequenting health clubs has changed over the last three decades. The patrons of health clubs now are older than before and not as fit as years before. These days, fitness facilities are catering to select groups of people. For instance, Curves caters to women who may have never belonged to a fitness facility before. More and more senior centers are also holding fitness classes.
Cardiac Rehabilitation has also promoted expansion of similar type programs for medical problems such as lung disease, stroke and diabetes. It is never too late to begin making fitness a way of life, however I would advise against waiting until you have a life threatening illness.
Including Exercise into Your Lifestyle
There is no question that a healthy, happy, lifestyle inc-ludes regular exercise whoever you are. Knowing how to do this and what is right for your own health may be confusing if you don’t fit into the categories of the athlete, the healthy young adult or a patient with a specific medical diagnosis for which there are set fitness programs. For this reason, the face of fitness is changing.
It now includes people who need to understand how to exercise despite their disease, people who have never exercised and are uncertain how to start, women who are pregnant or have just given birth, the young who want to train the right way to be fit for a sport try-out, the overweight who are self-conscious about joining a health club and the elderly who want to be stronger to enjoy life fuller.
Fitness is now more inclusive, and the new face of fitness includes the concept of Medical Fitness. Medical Fitness takes the medical needs of the individual into account. Those medical needs may include diabetes, asthma, obesity, menopause, osteoporosis and pregnancy, to name only a few.
On the other hand, the medical needs may merely be maximally challenging the body in training for a sport. This training can be with competitive athletes or ordinary people, young or old, who want to meet a challenge they have set for themselves â€" a marathon, a triathlon or something similar.
Medical Fitness is done in a medical facility under the supervision of a physician. It is typically one-on-one training and personalized. It is customized to the person. People who seek it out often make it their regular exercise routine. Some people use it as a temporary step to other forms of regular fitness programs.
As a Sports Medicine physician it always is pleasing to see what now was thought to just be for athletes is available for all. There is no greater joy than actually seeing someone become truly healthier.
We just turned the page to 2006. I hope fitness is on your page this year and included in your New Year’s resolutions. Have a healthy year.
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