The Role of the Fitness Professional in the Clinical Setting.

While fitness professionals have not historically been considered an extension of the health care team, there is a growing movement in health care to provide more complete and effective team-based care and to better integrate clinical and community resources. One way to do this is through physician referrals to community-based fitness professionals who can help patients translate clinician-advised exercise recommendations into individualized and effective exercise programs. Fitness professionals are uniquely qualified to fulfill this role given their training and practical expertise in exercise physiology, exercise program design and implementation, and health behavior change principles.

Physical Activity Surveillance in the United States for Work and Commuting: Understanding the Impact on Population Health and Well-being.

OBJECTIVE: To summarize and describe the current US surveillance systems that assess physical activity (PA) for work and commuting. METHODS: An expert group conducted an environmental scan, generating a list (n = 18) which was ultimately reduced to 12, based on the inclusion of PA and/or sedentary behavior data. RESULTS: The 12 surveys or surveillance systems summarized provide nationally representative data on occupational-level PA or individual-level PA at work, data on active commuting, some are scorecards that summarize workplace health best practices and allow benchmarking, and one is a comprehensive nationally representative survey of employers assessing programs and practices in different worksites. CONCLUSIONS: The various surveillance systems and surveys/scorecards are disparate and need to be better analyzed and summarized to understand the impact of occupational-level PA and commuting on population health and well-being, life expectancy, and workforce productivity.

Feasibility and acceptability of stepping exercise for cardiovascular fitness in women.

Nurses conducting clinical research often test the feasibility and acceptability of interventions before using them in large-scale experimental studies. This article specifically reviews stepping exercise as an intervention with women. In a literature review, three stepping modes (steptreadmill, bench/step, and stepper) were compared, with the steptreadmill being identified as the most advantageous for use in experimental research. An exemplar was constructed to illustrate feasibility and acceptability of steptreadmill exercise (motorized stair climbing) in 11 women with hypertension. Steptreadmill exercise is feasible and acceptable and shows promise for use in experimental studies where strict control over the exercise performed is required.