CARING FOR ATHLETES
NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS AND THE ATHLETE
Warning, you should utilize extreme caution prior to establishing a New Year’s Resolution regarding health, fitness and diet. While the present fitness boom has successfully increased American involvement into exercise and diet (an estimated 75 million people), there has been little understanding of the important medical aspects related to fitness. Consumers have failed to obtain necessary fitness information, and the medical community has failed to supply such information. Unfortunately, the fitness consumer most frequently is unaware of the importance of being confidently educated with regard to consuming fitness products and diet plans.
It has been reported that as few as one-third of American’s 75 million fitness consumers are receiving any benefit for their fitness efforts and dollars. That is, approximately 25 million fitness consumers are not obtaining fitness, and may now even know that they most likely are doing more harm than good to themselves. It is my opinion that these statistics may even be underestimating the number of fitness consumers who are actually doing harm to themselves. Of the 26 billion dollars currently being spent on fitness, experts reveal a large percentage of the money is wasted on fads, gimmicks, abandoned equipment, and unused health club memberships where the “dropout rate”, nonparticipating rate, is estimated to be greater than 90 percent. However, at the time the fitness consumers spend their well-intended fitness investment dollar, they are unaware that there is a great likelihood that they will never receive any positive health dividend for their time and financial investment. With these facts in mind, it is time we take a critical look at the fitness movement. And determine a means to assure greater fitness effectiveness.
The fitness movement has failed at numerous places. First, and foremost, the medical and physical education communities have failed to formerly organize themselves and establish regulations and guidelines for directing and educating consumers. Presently, conventional western medicine has been training professionals to acknowledge “ex post facto” pathological conditions, and then respond with only pharmaceutical or surgical measures. Furthermore, the medical community has benefited financially from those making no attempt to improve their fitness, and from fitness victims who have injured themselves while ineffectively trying to improve their personal fitness. Insurance and governmental agencies have remained antiquated by financially rewarding medical practitioners for remaining in said model. Physical education experts have failed to educate medical experts in the development of comprehensive and objective fitness evaluations. How many times have you read “see your physician before starting any fitness program”? An equal number of times you probably have paid an exorbitant fee and been let down to only having your heart and lungs subjectively examined and told your okay to start a fitness program. There has got to be more to a fitness evaluation than a simply subjective heart and lung examination. The medical community has got to offer the consumer a more objective assessment of the total body systems< and pay particular attention to those areas most likely to be insulted by participation in a health and fitness program.
Sharing this responsibility of where the fitness boom has gone awry has got to be the consumer. Frequently the consumer falls easy prey by setting unrealistic goals, and being gullible to misleading advertisement ploys such as “sex selling” manipulation ads and celebrity gimmick endorsements, and by joining health clubs that trap their members financially with a carefully construed contract while providing little, if any, professional guidance regarding health and fitness. The consumer has failed to critically study the market and make wise decisions. The fitness boom has occurred so suddenly, that fraudulent practices and gimmicks become commonplace quicker than effective programs or professional organizations have been able to educate the public, and formally regulate the market.
The need for educated and professional intervention into the fitness boom has been established. However, such a fitness regulation agency does not exist. Just as the Food and Drug Administration has regulated pharmaceutical products to protect the consumer, so should fitness products be regulated. Properly and expertly executed fitness programs have proven to be beneficial in the prevention of heart disease, the reduction of high blood pressure, decreasing the incidents of stress-related illnesses, the changing of blood chemistry, and have actually been proven to prolong life. Yes, we have actually found the “fountain of youth” yet I have not seen any headline stories in major newspapers depicting this recent important scientific fact.
So for now, without any regulating agency help, how can the consumer protect himself and become assured of receiving all the positive benefits that fitness can provide? The fitness consumer must seek out a medical fitness evaluation and guidance from a medical professional that evaluates the total body systems that will be involved during participation in a fitness program. A medical fitness evaluation and concurrent fitness education is the most direct route to objectively discovering your personal level of fitness. And how to take the safe steps necessary to efficiently improve this level. A properly designed fitness program that assesses your personal physical fitness needs and assures accountable results is necessary. Ideal medical fitness testing should be comprehensive, to assure that one area of fitness it not evaluated and trained at the insidious expense of a neglected area of your body. Proper medical fitness assessments analyze the entire body’s fitness needs. Simply having your heart and lungs examined while possessing a variety of biomechanical musculoskeletal problems will not insure you of well-being. Be certain to have your muscular fitness, flexibility fitness, joint integrity, posture fitness, body composition, nutritional fitness, as well as, cardiovascular fitness assessed. With objective assessment of all fitness factors, the fitness program you will be prescribed should guarantee you accountable results, while ascertaining that there will be no costly and insidious expense of developing an unforeseen injury to another bodily system.