Why the Professional Fitness Coach can be the Most Impactful Healthcare Provider

WHY THE PROFESSIONAL FITNESS COACH CAN BE THE MOST IMPACTFUL HEALTHCARE PROVIDER.

We’re in the midst of a health crisis.

No, not COVID-19, but obesity and Type 2 diabetes. They take more lives and cost the medical system more and more money each year.

And even if your A1C levels are fine and you’re not overweight, the great majority of people over the age of 40 have some kind of chronic pain—knee pain, shoulder pain, back pain, you name it. Hip replacements, knee replacements are becoming all the more commonplace today.

The point: Preventative medicine (i.e. fitness and nutrition), not diabetes and high blood pressure medicine or surgeries, is the better solution to the problem, one that can not only keep people healthier but can save our medical system financially.

This is where the coach comes in: A fitness coach, one that is able to stay in the industry as a long-term career because they’re able to make a professional wage, can (and do) help people put their chronic ailments, from lifestyle diseases to orthopedic injuries, into remission, and ultimately help prevent health problems from arising in the first place.

It’s not that doctors aren’t capable of doing this; it’s that they don’t have the time or resources to spend the required time with their patients to help them make lifestyle changes and get fit, as they’re already overrun diagnosing and treating acute illnesses.

Coaches, on the other hand, have the ability and the time to spend with their clients because this is the main focus of their job: to help people get fit and make lifestyle changes to positively impact their health.

The bottom line: Coaches can help teach people how to move properly how to eat properly, as opposed to just covering up their pain with a pill, an injection, or surgery, and ultimately reverse and prevent damage we have done to ourselves.

The problem is: People trust and turn to doctors, not coaches, for diagnosis and advice and help. Coaches, who obviously have much less formal training and respect from the general population, aren’t really taken as seriously as someone to turn to to improve your health.

This is one of Madlab’s missions: To create a class of professional coaches who pursue lifelong careers in the industry. Who, over time, can earn the respect of their clients and can slowly change public perception about the potential role of the coach.

Coaches, of course, shouldn’t work in a vacuum. They need to work alongside doctors—endocrinologists, neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, physical therapists, registered dieticians—to bridge the gap between medicine and rehabilitation and provide people with a personal coach in their corner to improve their health and save our healthcare system in the process.

But none of this is possible without the ability for coaches to earn a professional wage in order to pursue a full-time career.

Again, this is where we come in: We develop full-time, self-sufficient, entrepreneurial career coaches who are experts in their field and earn a professional wage coaching a sustainable number of on-floor hours each week.