Bridging the Gap Between Medical and Fitness - MedFit [Podcast Series]

• [:56] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Lisa Dougherty

  • Lisa is the Founder of the MedFit Network and the Founder and President of the MedFit Education Foundation.

  • Lisa has been the Owner of Whole Body Fitness for 21 years.

• [1:21] Building a medical fitness network

  • “And so I started to reach out to people in the fitness industry primarily, even though, MedFit Network, you could be an acupuncturist and joint massage, physical therapist, as long as you have services for people that have Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, MS.”

• [6:00] Integrating health & fitness with healthcare

  • “And so I think this is a perfect storm for the fitness industry to uplevel their education and be part of the healthcare continuum. I don't think it's going to be about glutes and abs anymore. I think it's going to be about prevention, wellness and rehabilitation. Living as long as you can in a state of wellness. You know, recovering from an injury, I think that's what's really important. And that's where we could serve our highest good in the fitness industry.”

• [9:05] Fitness professionals becoming trusted partners in the healthcare continuum

  • “Right now, there's no barrier to entry to the fitness industry. Anyone can call themselves a personal trainer or fitness instructor if they have some muscles, or they look fit. And that puts an unfair burden on the consumer and the physician to seek out someone who's qualified and educated. There's no licensing for our industry like massage therapy and physical therapy, where there's a certain required schooling and criteria met on a state level, I think it is for a lot of these industries. So that is not in place for the fitness industry.”

• [13:37] Fitness professional education and continuing education

  • “As a fitness professional, you can't just study one thing, you have to know it all because people are everything. So I think you need a very well rounded education to be in the medical fitness space.”

• [19:01] Fitness industry standards

  • “Well, right now, in order to get this off the ground and make it acceptable, I'm trying to start with the standards of the fitness industry.  If I make the bar too high, my concern is that no one's gonna want to jump to it or cross it, unfortunately. So I'm hoping to kind of get people into that with 20 hours of con ed, 10 hours to be a specialist.”

• [20:36] Medical fitness movement 

  • “I would like to see it as its own separate industry from mainstream fitness. Because again, I think that the standards, to your point, education, continuing education, needs to be greater.  And sure, there's people that are going to still want to do group fitness or help someone lose five pounds for, to fit in a wedding, that stuff will still be there. But I mean, really, for us to be part of the healthcare continuum, there has to be greater standards, and there has to be kind of a new industry born.” 

• [21:32] Post-pandemic fitness industry

  • “I think a lot of people who weren't part of gyms—I think they said only like 15% of America were part of gyms prior to COVID anyway. So, there was 85% of people that weren't, but these 85% of people who didn't want to go to gyms started virtual training or virtual apps. So these people right now are exercising who weren’t before, okay. And we're human beings, we like contact. So once people get vaccines or they're not home sheltering, they're not going to want to do virtual training, because that's no fun. They did it during COVID.”

• [25:51] Medical fitness success stories

  • “There's been a lot of people that have helped, I want to say special populations. Because right now, I think the healthy people are special populations  But they've helped connect with people and helped them stay well, stay fit during this pandemic. And I see these relationships growing stronger in the future. We've been saying exercise is medicine for so long. I really want it to be that. But I want, the real public to understand that, not just us talking about it within our industry.”

• [27:28] Play span

  • “Right now, there's not one pharmaceutical drug that cures anything.  They all just treat right now. There isn't a pill that cures and it's often said if they could put exercise in a pill, every doctor would prescribe it.  We talk about a lifespan, and it should be like a play span, how long can you play as you age, and keep that youthful attitude.”