By Doc | Stronger Personal Training
Let me say something that might get my medical license revoked.
Your doctor (most likely) knows little about your fitness.
Not because they’re bad doctors, or don’t care about your health. But because most physicians receive somewhere between zero and four hours of exercise science education in medical school. Four hours. For a degree that takes eight years to complete.
Yet they hand out advice like it’s a prescription (pun intended?).
It’s not their fault. Everyone wants their opinion…and they seek to “do no harm.” Bullocks.
What Grinds My Gears
I hear some version of this constantly from new members.
“My doctor told me to stop.”
Stop what? Stop living?
Stop exercising. Take it easy. Don’t use it. Wait for the imaging to come back. Rest until it feels better.
I get it — there are situations where rest is appropriate (rarely). But as a blanket recommendation for virtually any pain, injury, or health concern? Hodge podge.
Here’s what actually happens when you stop moving entirely.
Blood flow decreases to the affected area. Lymphatic fluid — which helps clear inflammation — stops circulating effectively. Muscles atrophy. Joints stiffen. Mood tanks. Energy drops. The highway to healing just got shut dahn, and that “closed road” has no detour.
Movement is medicine. Not movement that makes things worse. But movement — smart, modified, appropriate movement — is almost always better than doing nothing.
And here’s the thing most general practitioners aren’t trained to understand: if one part of your body is injured or limited, there’s (at least) 15 other areas to improve and progress.
Shoulder issue? Get on a bike. Work your legs. Do core stability. Keep the cardiovascular system running, the hormones firing, and the mood up.
Your life doesn’t stop and neither does your body because one component is asking for a break.
A Story About My Own Doctor Visit
Let me tell you about the time I went in for a routine physical for insurance purposes.
I was a young Physical Therapist. I was fit, active, and trained consistently. The doctor reviewing my numbers looked up and informed me that my BMI was dangerously high and I needed to lose weight.
Let’s just say she didn’t set an example with her advice (I think I saw her smoking out back).
The problem — as we’ve covered before — is that BMI doesn’t distinguish between muscle and fat. It’s a ratio of height to weight developed in the 1830s to study population statistics. It has no idea what’s actually inside your body.
She was taking a different test, and giving out the wrong answers.
A morbidly obese woman told a Physical Therapist who deadlifts over 600 pounds that he needed to lose weight.
This is the gap. Not malicious intent, or incompetence. Just a tool being used outside its appropriate context by someone who wasn’t trained in exercise physiology.
Andrew’s Story
Andrew came to us after years of knee pain. He was active — hiking, biking, staying as mobile as he could. But the stairs at home were becoming a real problem and his knees were letting him know about it after every hike.
Then we worked together. His knee pain – gone. The stairs, cycling, and hiking? Normal.
His doctor (a year later) wanted to follow up on his knee. You can’t make this $h!+ up.
Her advice? Even though he was hiking longer and better? He was getting older. He needed to be careful. Maybe dial back the long heights.
Ughhhhh.
His doctor wasn’t trying to punish him. But “be careful” without a specific alternative plan is just another way of saying stop. And stop wasn’t what Andrew needed.
What he needed was someone to build the muscles that support the joints that were giving him trouble. Stronger muscles around the knee means less load on the joint itself. Less load means less pain. Less pain means more hiking.
It’s not hard. Just not what a ten minute appointment is equipped to address.
Shelly’s Story
Shelly came in with a shoulder issue. She’d been to the doctor, gotten the imaging, and received the standard guidance — rest it, be careful, don’t do anything that aggravates it.
But Shelly didn’t want to lose momentum. She’d been making real progress and the idea of starting over was more painful than the shoulder.
So we modified.
No overhead pressing. No loading the shoulder in compromised positions. But we kept her training. Focused upper body stability. Legs. Core. Cardiovascular work. Lower body strength. We kept every system running that we could while the shoulder got the rest it needed.
Shelly didn’t lose her fitness. She didn’t lose her routine. She didn’t lose her momentum or her mindset. But she did keep losing weight, and eventually her shoulder got better.
Her shoulder needed attention. Not to be ignored.
What’s Actually Missing
General practitioners are incredibly skilled at diagnosing, treating, and managing disease. That’s what they’re trained for, and (hopefully) good at.
Exercise prescription is a different discipline. It requires understanding how the body moves, how muscles and joints interact, how to modify training around limitations, how to progress someone safely over time, and how to balance the demands of fitness with the realities of a real person’s life.
There’s also something worth noting. The advice to stop exercising often comes from practitioners who aren’t exercising themselves. I’m not saying that to be harsh — the demands of medicine are brutal and self-care is genuinely hard when you’re working those hours. But it’s worth asking whether the person telling you to take it easy has any personal framework for what an active lifestyle actually requires.
This isn’t about disrespecting your doctor. It’s about understanding the limits of any single discipline — and knowing when to seek out someone whose entire training is focused on exactly what you’re asking about.
What To Do Instead
If your doctor tells you to stop exercising or take it easy — ask one follow up question.
“What specifically should I avoid, and what can I still do?”
A good answer gets specific, and a non-answer tells you they’re not sure.
Then find someone who is. A physical therapist, a certified strength coach with clinical experience, someone who works with your population and your limitations and knows how to build around them rather than just stop (spoiler alert: we offer all the above).
Your body was built to move. The goal is to figure out how, not when.
If you’ve been told to take it easy and aren’t sure what you can actually do — that’s exactly the conversation we have with new members every day.
Reply and let’s figure it out together.
Doctor’s Orders,
Doc