Why I attended a seminar for movement professionals as a future primary care provider & non-movement professional.
On Friday, October 23, I flew to Miami for the Training = Healthcare seminar led by Katie Dabrowski, DPT, CSCS from Old Bull Athletics, who I met through Veterans Future Foundation and Unlock Human Potential (UHP).
She’s a badass and the first time I ever heard her speak, I was like holy sh*t, someone who gets it.
The primary audience for this weekend seminar was movement professionals and rehab providers, so physical therapists and PT assistants, strength and conditioning coaches, chiropractors, etc.
Sure, I have some background in movement, both personally and professionally, but why did I feel this existential need to attend this seminar as a health coach, and in particular, as a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) student?
A lot of what we covered that weekend was bridging the gap between training and rehab. Being able to rule out red flags in clients without the need for a specific diagnosis. And once that’s done, helping them to build the confidence in their ability to manage pain, and build resilience in their training.
But we also covered how crucial training is for overall health and well-being. Understanding the importance of muscle health and quality, and how that plays a vital role in people’s overall metabolic health.
Understanding why training for strength, power, hypertrophy, reactivity, sprinting, and endurance, matters for preventing and managing disease. LOTS of diseases: metabolic syndrome, diabetes, depression and anxiety, congestive heart failure... the list goes on (and on).
My goal as a future FNP is to help my patients understand the importance of training. Not because I think everyone should be a meathead (and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell them that (; ) but because of how exercise is truly one of the greatest forms of medicine that we have available to us. And not just because the research says so, but also because of what it makes possible for people.
Being able to carry their groceries without a second thought. Getting up from the floor after a fall, or better yet, having the balance and power to prevent a fall in the first place. Playing with their children. Increasing one’s resilience because they know they can do hard things. Getting back to a sport that brings them immense joy. Continuing to do things they love with the people they love. And feeling like the absolute best version of themselves.
I don’t want conversations around physical activity to bring people guilt or shame about what they should be doing or could be doing better. I want to show people how physical activity could connect to their vision of the life they would love to be living. I want people to know and trust that they can keep moving as they age, and if they’ve strayed from physical activity, it’s not too late to start over. I want them to know that someone (me) believes in them and what they’re capable of.
So how can I better incorporate training into my patient education? How can I be more literate on the importance of training and how to approach it, while also recognizing when to bring someone in with deeper expertise?
One big takeaway from the weekend was that helping someone to move forward takes more than just telling them what to avoid.
It takes recognition of red flags that warrant further evaluation, an understanding of the patient’s goals and what’s important to them, and a collaborative approach to helping them find an appropriate path towards movement: collaboration with my patients and other medical, rehab, and movement professionals.
Too often we hear overgeneralized recommendations like, “Well if it hurts then you should just stop doing that.” “Heavy lifting is bad for you; you should just do low intensity/low impact exercise instead.” “You should have surgery, that’ll fix it.”
These recommendations can often leave patients with more questions than answers, and this can become immensely overwhelming.
For example, about a year and a half ago, I saw my OBGYN and reported some pelvic floor dysfunction (shout out to my girls who have peed a little when they lift or jump). I told her I love heavy deadlifts but sometimes, that was when I’d leak. She told me to stop doing those because they’re terrible for you and that I should do Pilates instead…
Having someone tell me to completely write off one of the things that brings me the most joy in my training felt like a kick in the gut. And it was absolutely infuriating because I knew I was safe to keep deadlifting. There were just other things I could also be doing to bolster my training and preparedness.
In that moment, I was looking for a partnership with my provider, not a one-way directive.
I would have loved a conversation about how things like pelvic floor physical therapy, Pilates, or other modalities could further support my goals. At the very least, I would have loved an acknowledgement that training hard is important to me, and it’s important for my health and well-being, so how could we work together to better support that?
Are there times where we need to take a break, to modify our training, and where surgery is necessary? 1000%, and of course there are certain patients that may not be able to safely access exercise due to an acute illness or injury. But so often, people are very safe to train, and I believe I should be helping them to find ways to do so.
The Training = Healthcare seminar also reminded me that so often, people look to their doctors and mid-levels as the experts. “Well, my doctor told me not to do this, so I need to trust them.” And while this is very often the case for medical advice, we have to remember that, in this case, our providers are not usually the experts when it comes to training. That’s where our movement and rehab professionals come into play.
I’ve definitely seen a shift in how providers approach physical activity, and I don’t think this applies to all doctors, NPs, and PAs. But I want to do my part so that, as a collective, we’re doing the best we can for our patients.
As an FNP student, I’m spending years learning how to assess the health of my patients and create appropriate care and treatment plans accordingly based on the current medical marvels we have available to us.
And yet, if exercise is one of the best tools I have for preventing, managing, and treating disease and injury, how can I keep building upon my understanding of physical activity?
If my goal is to be the best primary care provider I can possibly be, I want to have a foundational understanding of the greatest tool I have at my disposal to help move the needle in my patients’ health and performance. And at the very least, I want to gain a better understanding of the referral pathways and the resources I have to help my patients in such a critical area.
Those referral relationships belong in my clinical toolbox.
This experience at Training = Healthcare better solidified how I hope to practice someday.
Health coaching has taught me that clients and patients are the experts in their own lives. Very, very rarely do I tell someone what to do. But as I shift into this provider role where that becomes a part of my job, I want to ensure that I still understand what’s important, realistic, and meaningful to my patients.
How can I adapt their care plan to meet them where they’re at, while progressing them towards the best version of themselves? And along the way, I want to ensure that whatever we come up with is something that is achievable, realistic, exciting (as exciting as it can be), and sustainable for them.
My recommendations should help them to make informed decisions and build a plan that reflects what matters most to the person in front of me.
That weekend sparked a commitment to better prepare myself as a (hopefully) future provider. And here are some of the questions that are now running around rent free in my brain that I will take with me for my patients.
How can I better understand the red flags that make someone truly unsafe to train? If I’m able to rule those out, how can I point them in the direction of a movement professional who can help them get back to or start training?
How can I incorporate movement into my practice so that it becomes as second nature as brushing your teeth?
How can I help my patients reach the minimum physical activity guidelines: 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity and 2 total body resistance training sessions a week? Can I explain to them what exactly those recommendations mean and how they can apply them?
I understand that how I implement all of this may be tricky. Everyone is on a continuum of where they can access physical training and activity. I also am wildly aware that there are so many systemic, environmental, and economic factors that play a role here, so understanding what’s necessary for creating change, while having empathy for what’s realistic and attainable for the person in front of me is really important.
Seminars like Training = Healthcare are a great place to start. To expose myself to where others thrive, and where I can develop a better understanding. It’s not on me to be the expert in this realm, those experts exist. But it is on me to do whatever I can to give my patients the best chance at achieving meaningful outcomes.
So, in closing, that’s why I went.
To learn from people whose expertise complements the role I’m working toward.
To ask better questions, make more useful recommendations, and build stronger connections between healthcare and training.
To make the greatest impact I possibly can on the health and well-being of my patients.
Now that lights me the f*ck up.
