Minor Niggles VS Serious Health Problems...

During a recent round of golf I met a fellow playing partner who happened to be a doctor. Now this might come as no surprise as there are plenty of Doctors out there but what he had to say about health and fitness really disappointed me… 

After finding outI was a gym owner he proceeded to inform our playing group that gyms owners like me were the leading cause of his patients coming to his clinic. He stated that in his opinion, too many people are going to see him with injuries sustained while training in the gym. Now what gym or gyms these injuries are sustained in I am not sure. The point was that he feels the risk of injury far outweighs the positives of exercise and going to a gym. 

I thought this was really interesting, someone who knows the functions of a human body better than I do would NOT recommend exercise to his patients. This to me seems silly. I would liken his statement to not catching the plane to go on your next holiday because planes have the potential to crash so you shouldn’t get on it just in case. The same could be said for you daily commute to work on the bus, train or ferry…  

Now hearing this made me wonder what he would actually recommend to his patients. So I asked him, “When someone comes to see you who is overweight or has a condition such as diabetes what do you recommend?” His answer was medication… 

This shocked me. Rather than working with the person on fixing the underlying issue of eating too much, eating less processed food or recommending some exercise to help with weight control he would much rather just prescribe some sort of medication and send the person on their way… 

Now in no way am I saying this is what all doctors do. I think medicine has come a long way and is still making great progress. The point I want to get across here is that just because there is a chance you can sustain minor niggles or injuries by going to the gym it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. 

To me a sprain, strain or soreness is a much better outcome than some sort of serious health issues like obesity, diabetes or heart condition because I didn’t exercise…