Exercise Prescription in Rehabilitation and Fitness

Course overview

This course will focus on exercise prescription in rehabilitation and return to fitness following injury. Evidence based and informed rationales for decision making will be discussed based on appropriate categorization of a patient or clients condition and fitness status. The ability to competently select exercise interventions based on a patient or clients condition is critical for the practice of physical therapy, occupational therapy, athletic training and personal training. While most entry level practitioners possess a basic understanding of which muscles and joints are involved in a particular exercise, a more nuanced understanding of how to match and progress appropriate load to individual conditions is essential for the management of more complex cases. The course will first seek to categorize patient conditions based on anatomical tissue, chronicity, and the presence of any underlying conditions. Next criteria for appropriate intervention selection will be organized around sound consideration of the patients current functional status and realistic temporal goal setting. Concepts for organizing exercise difficulty, including but not limited to differentiating isolated vs compound exercises and use of the 4 x 4 matrix will be presented. Next participants will learn to build well reasoned exercise programs that systematically progress patients through rehabilitation and towards their fitness goals. That process will incorporate recognized paradigms for evaluating training human movement. Concepts to evaluate dysfunction and performance, including but not limited to the Selective Functional Movement Assessment SFMA and Functional Movement Screen FMS respectively will be introduced. Established concepts and protocols for strength training, as well as lesser known exercise paradigms including but not limited to Medical Exercise Therapy MET will be discussed, as well as methods to evaluate patient tolerance to selected interventions. The knowledge of established fitness professionals like Gray Cook, and concepts like athletic motor skill competencies AMSC and soreness rules will be incorporated into novel program design that considers changes in motor control following injury.