I was fortunate enough to attend the Australian Physiotherapy Association’s (APA) national conference recently on the Gold Coast. I was enlightened to hear from many speakers about what’s important in our industry. One point that stuck in my mind was the importance of physical activity. Professor Steven Blair gave an insightful presentation, informing us all about the benefits of physical activity. He reported that reduced physical activity leads to more deaths in women and men than obesity, diabetes, smoking, high cholesterol and hypertension. This was definitely news to me.
I also heard that this year, the APA is partnering with Movember.
For those of you that don’t know, traditionally, Movember encourages individuals to grow a Moustache and raise money for men’s health during the month of November. However, this year, Movember has rebranded itself as “MOVEmber” to encourage more people to get physical! The challenge is to move for 30 minutes every day in November.
When I heard this, I thought it was a great initiative to get everyone involved in more physical activity. It is exciting to hear that a campaign which gains a lot of traction in the public eye is now not only promoting men’s health, but also encouraging people to be more active.
This is also a topic that, as a physiotherapist, I talk about on a daily basis. I know how hard it can be to fit in exercise, as there is always that extra email you could reply to, that extra time you could spend at work or that extra 30 minutes of sleep in the morning.
At BJC Health, we decided, in support of “MOVEmber” that we would like to offer complimentary 15 minute consultations, a phone call, email or even a skype consultation if you would like to speak to one of our physiotherapists about whether you are ready to participate in 30 minutes of exercise.
My aim is to get the team at BJC Health moving more, and as many people as possible outside of our clinic participating in more physical activity. If we can all grow a Mo at the same time, that’s a bonus!
It’d be great to hear how each of you plan to include 30 minutes of physical activity in your day for MOVEmber.