7 Steps to Starting Your MET Practice in Any Setting

So you want to work with diabetics, total joint replacements, arthritis, low back pain and other medical conditions? But you are wondering where to start, what to do and which medical professionals to approach? In this presentation, I will give you the "7 Steps to Starting Your Medical Exercise Training Practice in Any Setting". For the last 20 years, I have helped and educated fitness professionals and personal trainers around the world to "Bridge the Gap Between Health Care and Fitness". This presentation will summarize everything I've learned and shared with them.

Medical Exercise Training (MET) is the development of safe and effective exercise programming for clients with medical conditions. MET does not provide any aspects of medical treatment. This new and growing arena is one of the keys in solving our health care crisis. MET is a great option for managing chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity,...

Medical exercise training and corrective exercise are growing rapidly. It’s important to make sure both concepts are used appropriately. Many clients may report pain and discomfort to their fitness professional. In many instances, the immediate response is to think of an exercise to manage the discomfort. Obviously, the personal trainer, corrective exercise specialist or medical exercise professional cannot diagnose. But there should be some process to determine if the client should seek medical care.

In the corrective execise realm the response may be to put the client through a screening to determine what exercise will manage the discomfort or the accompanying muscular imbalance. We need to start thinking beyond muscular and postural imbalances as the source of client pain and discomfort. In many cases, these non-muscular/postural sources of discomfort are not considered by the corrective exercise specialist or personal trainer.

In the METI – Medical Exercise...

Medical exercise professionals are doing a great job managing medical conditions with exercise but are we providing services to all the clients in need of medical exercise training (MET)? Many clients are not financially able to access MET services. In this blog post, Dr Mike discusses five ways to make MET services more affordable. The options are:

1. MET Group Training – this allows a more affordable option to deliver MET services. MET group training consists of a small group of exercise participants (<10) with similar medical conditions participating in a group exercise class. The class focuses on the exercise needs based on the medical condition as well as avoiding contraindicated activities in the conditioning programs. The group classes focus on a particular group of related medical conditions. This allows the exercise class to focus on the specific needs of the condition(s) and thereby improve function of the participants.
2. MET Online Training...

Medical Exercise Specialists want to connect with medical professionals to establish relationships and get referrals. MET started 25 years ago with the first Medical Exercise Specialist course. Since then Medical Exercise Specialists have approached physicians, physical therapists and chiropractors. Many of these medical professionals do refer their patients but many medical exercise professionals are commiting the "7 Mistakes Fitness Professionals Make When Approaching Medical Professionals”. This post will review these 7 mistakes.

1. Talking about your fitness certifications – many medical professionals have no idea of fitness certifications nor the organizations which offer them. Most medical professionals in physical therapy, orthopedics and sports medicine know of ACSM. But they have no idea of the certifications fitness organizations offer. In your presentation, if you focus on your fitness certifications, you might find the result does not include referrals.
2. ...

Clients are leaving physical or occupational therapy earlier and with greater limitations such as weakness, lack of endurance, etc. This is not the fault of the physical or occupational therapists, its the changes in insurance reimbursement for rehabilitation. As a result the medical exercise professional is seeing clients with greater ‘residual functional deficits”. These deficits limit client function and are the primary reason for the growth in medical exercise training since 1994 when we offered the first Medical Exercise Specialist workshop and certification.

The job of the Medical Exercise Specialist is shifting toward identifying and developing an exercise program to improve these “residual functional deficits”. These deficits may be in range of motion, strength, endurance, balance, power, etc. The function wheel below identifies the key components of function. Your job as the medical exercise professional is to deal with these deficits.

The...

So you want to build a medical exercise practice? You completed the Medical Exercise Specialist (MES) or Post Rehab Conditioning Specialist (PRCS) certification but now what? Which physician or physical therapist should you approach first? What should you say to physicians and therapists? What will medical professionals want for referring clients? How should you explain medical exercise training (MET)? Will doctors accept you as a Medical Exercise Specialist? How do you build credibility to obtain referrals?

Get the answers to these questions and more in Medical Exercise Jumpstart!!

Making the transition from personal training to medical exercise training (MET) can take time. Over the last 25 years we have identified 6 keys to making a successful transition to medical exercise training. In this video Dr Mike reviews these 6 keys. The 6 keys are:

1. Stop Thinking Like a Fitness Professional

2. You Have Expertise Medical Professionals Need

3. Seek More Medical Continuing Education

4.Find a Physician or Therapist as a Mentor

5. You Have the Key to Function......EXERCISE!!

6. Medical Exercise Training is ALL About FUNCTION!!

Please share your thoughts on the keys for your transition to MET.

Functional Outcome Measures (FOMs) are important to determine the effecitveness of medical exercise training. Medical exercise professionals will have to begin using FOMs to communicate with medical professionals, clients and insurance carriers. This segment will review FOMs and how medical exercise professionals can use them and enhance their practice. This video will answer 4 questions: 1) what are functional outcome measurements; 2) why do I need to use FOMs; 3) when do I use FOMs and 4) where do I obtain FOM values for my client?

Please share how you have used functional outcome measures in your practice.

LEADERSHIP is the final stage of the Medical Exercise Specialist Career Success Path. Everyone wants to get to this stage and teach courses, mentor younger less experienced medical exercise professionals or manage a MET program. To get here, as with other professions, its requires completion of the earlier stages to ensure the leader has all the requirements, experience and knowledge to lead, advise and manage effectively.

We put MES Career Success Path together because there is a trend now which says, if you took the workshop before other staff members, though you have limited experience using the technique or skill, you are the expert and you can teach others. or you can use the technique on clients. That’s not quite how it should work. For lawyers or physicians, to become the professor or teacher, it requires years of training and skill refinement, management decisions and producing positive outcomes before you are allowed teach or mentor.

Once you reach the LEADERSHIP...

GROWTH….this is the stage every medical exercise professionals wants to get to as quickly as possible, This is where everyone wants be. A growing, thriving practice with referrals coming in and high revenue is the goal. Only 10% of medical exercise professionals get to this stage. This stage is the most elusive and difficult to reach for a number of reasons.

By the time you get to this stage you have a SPECIALIZATION and you passed through the MANAGEMENT stage so you can produce positive functional outcomes for your clients; you have learned the APPLICATION of the skills you learned in the MES or PRCS workshops from which you established a strong FOUNDATION. So now its on to GROWTH. Without passing through the previous four stages, you wouldnt be here. GROWTH can only come from passing through the other four. This is the same in every profession. You can’t shortcut it….you’ve got to do the work and put in the time. But it’s great because now you...