Something I have been thinking a lot about lately is the advice some ‘health professionals’ are providing to the general public. Many of you have clients, friends and family that trust Doctors. We know them as well trained experts. Many of us wouldn’t dream of challenging our doctor’s opinion. While many doctors are excellent, this isn’t always the case.

Lately I have heard some experiences that got me thinking. How do we know if the advice we receive is right?

A friend of mine recently fell pregnant, so she went to see a doctor. Her doctor told her that she should stop all the exercise she was currently doing and do nothing except gentle walks for the next 9 months, as ‘even jumping can cause a miscarriage’. This friend is fit and active but this scared her. For 2 weeks she did nothing. Eventually she realised that she felt terrible, she had no energy and was stressed out. She realised that for her, exercise was important. She started training again, listening to her body and doing what felt comfortable and right.

Another story was a woman who was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. She also was fit and active, her doctor told her that now she had diabetes she  should cut her exercise dramatically. Again this was a person who was confident enough to know that this advice didn’t work for her. Yes she needed to monitor her glucose levels closely and again listen to her body and do what felt sensible, but not exercising at all just wasn’t right for her.  

I remember as a fitness instructor talking to a woman who was in her early 40’s, she was fit and active, her body fat was really low and she had been doing resistance training. She was feeling really happy with her progress but she was confused. She had just been to her doctor who had told that she had put on weight so her BMI wasn’t looking so good. He advised that she stop resistance training and went back to just doing cardio.  As her instructor I was able to explain what the BMI test meant for her (nothing!) and why she should continue with her current training (she enjoyed it and it was getting her the results she wanted with no risk to her health).

What these examples highlighted for me, was that as fitness professionals we need to know our stuff. We need to be able to understand the benefits and risks of exercise for clients in many situations so we can help them decide for themselves what is, and what isn’t, a good idea.

I am by no means saying don’t listen to doctors advice, but if your client comes to you with advice that doesn’t seem right maybe recommend a second opinion, or do some research of your own. Another option would be asking us in the forum to see if we can provide any advice.