Clinically, Exercise Is Preventive Healthcare.  Commercially, What Do We Do Next?

That’s no exaggeration. The list of conditions and diseases that exercise helps prevent includes just about anything you can think of. A time-efficient approach to aerobic and resistance exercise aids in:

• preventing or reversing mild cognitive decline;

• increasing bone mineral density and mitigating osteoporosis risk;

• reducing risk of cardiovascular disease; and

• reducing all-cause mortality, particularly when associated with aerobic fitness (VO2 max) and muscle strength.

Exercise is no longer simply recreation or entertainment. It is one of the most powerful interventions available to improve quality of life, extend health span, and reduce the burden of chronic disease.

Implementing Exercise Interventions Responsibly

In my opinion, the future of our industry is built around our scientific understanding that exercise is essential healthcare. But if exercise is to be considered as such, industry leaders have a responsibility to treat it like any evidence-based medical intervention. This means it is incumbent upon us to turn to the preponderance of scientific research to guide our exercise recommendations. As an industry, this requires us to be less fad-driven and more science-driven.

Core to medicine is the concept of a “dose-response” relationship and the tenet of “minimal effective doses.” We can’t think in broad strokes. Structured exercise is exactly that: It needs to be guided, dose-appropriate, safe, and targeted to the individual.

In practical terms, we need to come together as an industry to create the same standards of care as other health practitioners. That’s why HFA’s new partnerships with the American Cancer Society and the Alzheimer’s Association’s Brain Health Roundtable are such important developments. They put our industry in direct communication with medical authorities who can help us provide the best support we can for patients who need our services.

If exercise is to be treated as essential healthcare, then our industry has an extraordinary opportunity—and an equally extraordinary responsibility. Perhaps the clubs that thrive over the next decade won't be those with the newest equipment or the trendiest classes—they’ll be the organizations that embrace evidence-based practices, prescribe the minimum effective dose, measure meaningful outcomes, and earn the trust of healthcare providers and consumers alike.

The science is clear. The question for our industry is whether we are willing to build our businesses around scientifically tested evidence that creates the best health outcomes.