Professionalization
of Exercise Physiologyonline
An international electronic
journal for exercise physiologists
ISSN 1099-5862
Vol 2 No 11 November 1999


Exercise Physiology: Some Professional Reflections

Tommy Boone, PhD, MPH, FASEP

Professor and Chair, Department of Exercise Physiology, College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, MN


Introduction

Exercise physiology is multidimensional.  It is a young profession with its own organized body of knowledge.  Yet, regardless of what exercise physiologists know so far, they can not go into the next century relying on what is known.  New ways of thinking are important to the professionalism of exercise physiology.  This articles tries to equip the exercise physiologist with the understanding, the thinking, and the skills for the next century.  In short, exercise physiology is about serving the public.  Every opportunity to serve the public is also about achievements in exercise physiology.  It is about helping the public move closer to achieving its health and fitness vision, and in so doing helping exercise physiologists achieve its right as a profession.

The New Reality

During the last 40 years, exercise physiology has become a society of respected researchers.  However, every major effort by exercise physiologists, every social task whether as a college teacher or as a corporate fitness instructor, the pursuit of new knowledge, is today being entrusted to the emergence of a new wave of exercise physiologists.  Among them, many belong to the American Society of Exercise Physiologists (ASEP).  The Society is important to the continued growth and stability of exercise physiology.  This means, above all, that with the Society there is hope for increased economic stability and a practice based on both knowledge and on responsibility.

There was no Society of exercise physiologists in the world before 1997.  Only a handful of exercise physiologists had the notion that something was wrong, but without institutional support they were not able to establish a viable option to sports medicine.  The Society is the new reality, the new opportunity, and the new dream.  It is the hope that is singularly an enterprise beyond comparison.  It denotes a new direction and the possibility of a new social position and rank.  The excitement over the Society is in large measure the result of the promise that it will change the path of the present-day career options to a respectable percentage of the healthcare market.

From now on, exercise physiology is independent of the idea that it is solely “clinical.”  Ownership and rank within the public sector is functionally grounded in the responsibility for helping, managing, and discharging health, fitness, and rehabilitation issues and problems common to the public.  Exercise physiologists are, indeed, the most likely professionals to become a household word.  Not even the smallest among the members of the public is free from health, fitness, rehabilitation, and athletic concerns.  Everyone is in need of respectable and accountable information and guidance, and the exercise physiologist is the professional of choice?

The Beginning of Something Different

From the beginning, that is, from the emergence of the concepts that support the benefits of exercise, exercise physiologists have unmistakably been on the right path.  Profitability was never the objective despite all indications of financial rewards.  Exercise physiology, above all, is the profession where exercise physiologists practice exercise physiology.  Others may think that they have the qualifications to practice exercise physiology.  But, if they are not exercise physiologists, they have no more right to practice exercise physiology than an accountant who is practicing medicine.

There are specific critical reflection skills and a body of scientifically based knowledge that pertains to exercise physiology.  A person who is educated as an exercise physiologist understands the issues, problems, and concerns and, thus is competent to manage the fundamentals of how to practice as an exercise physiologist.   Those who do not understand constitute the divided between the academic degree in exercise physiology and the concentration in exercise science.  Graduates from exercise science programs are becoming the central components to converting exercise science to exercise physiology.  They recognize that the most important change for exercise physiology lies in the next generation of academic course work.  This basic belief is partly the reason for ASEP, its existence, the determinants of it work, and the grounds of its authority and legitimacy.

Entrepreneurship

ASEP does not exist for its own sake, but to fulfill a specific professional purpose and to satisfy specific needs of exercise physiologists.  As a professional organization, it exists to increase exercise physiologists’ economic performance.  It justifies its existence and its authority through the efforts of exercise physiologists who improve the political structure, responsibility, and management of professional considerations.  In discharging its responsibilities, there is another dimension to quenching the exercise physiologists’ thirst for professionalism.  That dimension is the specific job of entrepreneurship to enable exercise physiologists to go into business, to create a true permanence in the public sector, and thus to increase overall economic productivity.  In short, with increased integration into the public sector with business objectives, exercise physiologists are guaranteed a larger share of the market.

Everybody understands the importance of the phrase “satisfaction guaranteed” but few have the right questions much less the understanding of the growing realization that without customers, there isn’t any satisfaction.  Hence, the public is the key to the unique function of exercise physiology.  Until exercise physiologists become market-oriented and organized around product and service, first-class professional opportunities are limited.  The greatest opportunity for optimizing market potential lies with professionalism; the step that takes the exercise physiologist from traditional and perishable roots to one of profit, power, and above all respect.

Questions and Decisions

Respect is the essence of the ASEP vision.  It is the understanding that unifies all exercise physiologists.  It is the business of ASEP, its directives, and why it exists.  It is the customer, however, who awards the recognition of respect.   Hence, given the importance of the public sector, the question might be, What are the consumer’s wants?  What will satisfy them, which products or services?  Equally important, What is the exercise physiologist’s business?  Is it to do research?  To teach?  If so, there are not enough research opportunities for non-Ph.D. exercise physiologists to survive financially.  Everyone without a Ph.D. understands this point even though it may be poorly understood by the Ph.D. exercise physiologist.  Thus, the question, again, What is the business of the exercise physiologist, who should define it, and how will it be marketed?

The decision to develop national certification for exercise physiologists, state licensure, and accreditation of academic programs is a “strategy” to concentrate on professional standards and services.  It converts the traditional view of exercise physiologists from the prevailing “technician” role to one of a “professional”.  The concentration on professionalism is the beginning to the decision to be respected as leaders in health, fitness, rehabilitation, and athletics.  It is a genuine effort to gain a greater share of the healthcare market, whether it is the promotion of existing programs or development of new market possibilities.  Professionalism sets the stage for distinguishing competent from incompetent while also converting “what is” into “what can be”.  The conversion itself requires accountability and action.  Exercise physiologists have to set priorities, and they need to concentrate on defining the future.

Exercise Physiology in 20 Years!

The idea of taking charge of the future is such a new concept that practically no exercise physiologist understands it much less is doing it.  Long-range planning and elaborate objectives of how to manage professionals, resources, and the market does not exist.  There are no masterminding taking place, and there are no sports medicine decisions of divine guidance to help exercise physiologists, only decades of neglect.  Yet, the future will not just happen by wishing and dreaming without action.  It requires action, risk, and passion.

The idea of something new, meaningful, and right requires strategic decisions to define “What is the exercise physiologists’ business?” and “How are exercise physiologists going to realize it?”  Perhaps, one approach is to start with the question, “What is the business of the exercise physiologist today?”  What part of what exercise physiologists are doing today can be played down and which should be emphasized along with new resources?

Could be that too much emphasis is placed on clinical without the argument of expansion of health-fitness and multi-rehabilitative care across the American lifestyle?  There has to be a beginning, and exercise physiology has established itself in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation.  However, the physical and social universe of the public sector begs for entrepreneur forecasting and in-roads into countless possibilities with significant economic benefit to professional exercise physiologists.  Could it be as simple as the consideration of alternative courses (to those such as developing an exercise prescription) with divergent yet purposeful application and commitment to treating inevitable lifestyle issues.

What new and/or different academic and/or laboratory things do exercise physiologists need to do, and when?  The first step in considering possible answers lies with determining what exercise physiologists want to be in the future.  Are they content with things as they are?  What will get the non-Ph.D. exercise physiologist up and moving?  ASEP is designed to act, but without members the decision-making process falls short of influencing the larger audience.  This simply means that more exercise physiologists have to buy into ASEP and more have to be willing to work on behalf of its strategic plans.

However, strategic planning by itself is useless and does little to advance exercise physiology.  It does not even counter effectively the irresponsible approach and efforts of sports medicine.  Since sports medicine is not going away, exercise physiologists have no choice but to learn to manage themselves.  Their performance, however defined, their work, wherever it is carried out, and their responsibility to the public sector must be constructed, evaluated, and understood by exercise physiologists and not by everybody else who may look like or call themselves exercise physiologists.  Hence, the cry for exercise physiologists with their heart to the profession is a standing invitation to get involved and to argue for a tangible piece of professionalism.  This is as true for exercise physiologists as it was, for instance, the accountant, lawyer, or medical doctor during their positioning for professional status.  It is the step towards professional survival, and it is the foundation for a national move to build from within self-control and self-regulation.

The right of every emerging profession to compete for resources and economic goods is well recognized in developed societies.  There should be no reason that exercise physiologists are not allowed to raise standards and compete for the consumers’ respect and healthcare needs.  They are entitled to market themselves, to be autonomous from outside control, and to establish policy where necessary to legislate professional issues.  They may even within the foreseeable future function more as business leaders than as researchers.  Until fairly recently, this point has not been seriously considered by exercise physiologists.

Healthcare Dimensions

While the physiological dimension is critical to the fundamental issues of exercise physiology, there isn’t any reason why exercise physiologists can not get outside of this prearranged sequence of thinking.  Working on behalf of the public sector, as a professional with a strong and proven scientific record, is more complex than relying on knowledge in just one area.  However complex the output of physiology knowledge is to health, fitness, rehabilitation, and sports, it may not be enough given the multiplication of factors that make up the human being.

Exercise physiologists must access control over other dimensions of life or otherwise remain fixed to a work condition that may be poorly designed for financial stability.  Without confinement to a standard rhythm of interaction with the public, without other professionals imposing their beliefs on what exercise physiologists should be, nothing should be impossible.  Hence, a sizable improvement in professional status and, above all, in the professionalization of exercise physiology, which is inevitable, is the exercise physiologists’ unique position to critically read, understand, and apply concepts and ideas of other academic areas to the public sector.  This may also explain why, throughout the brief history of exercise physiology, college students seek out the exercise science/physiology academic preparation.

Unfortunately, however, academic exercise physiologists rarely teach, either in lecture or in laboratory experiences, the potential of the field beyond the basic traditional views of fitness, cardiac rehabilitation, and athletics.  The academic exercise physiologists teach and do research and the students graduate to work in the local fitness center!  The work of teaching others how to lift weights by itself is hardly something that requires a college degree.  It hardly has a serious salary as to provide a living, and there isn’t a planned resolution to this result within traditional exercise physiology as guided by sports medicine.

Exercise physiologists should consider the study and application of ideas, concepts, and general information of different subjects of diverse fields of study to the healthcare concerns of the general public.  It isn’t that they aren’t doing this in some less formal way via the health and fitness courses.  However, investing more ownership in both the subjects and the application thereof should encourage others to view the exercise physiology profession as a more than an exercise profession.  This idea has been a long time in coming, but a reality that is predictable, that is, personal and professional profits realized from a smart integration of primary and secondary issues and academic subjects that influence, either directly or indirectly, the healthcare of the public sector.

Although debatable, from a theoretical point of view, the development of exercise physiology beyond “exercise” per se to become true “owners” and true “professionals” requires ownership and investment in other fields of study.  There will always be an authority implicit with exercise physiologists working within the exercise model.  But, since exercise and health, exercise and function, exercise and emotions, exercise and rehabilitation, exercise and sports, exercise and physiology, exercise and anatomy, exercise and psychological, emotional, and spiritual are all inextricably tied together in the ultra-design of the human race, it is logical, therefore, to acknowledge the contribution of other fields of study.

The Whole Person

In fact, if the last 50 years has taught us anything, it is that the problems faced by the public sector are not typically univariate in origin; rather they are multivariate with multi-dimensions (physiological, social, psychological, emotional, spiritual, mechanical, and so forth).  Addressing any one of the dimensions is not likely to accommodate issues, when analyzed, that incorporate multivariate dimensions.  Work at managing the “whole” person is the challenge, which explains why the whole person in cardiac rehabilitation is not helped by just training the physical.  The true configuration of the whole person requires the professional to acknowledge the multivariate components.  Healing the physical will not necessarily result in the healing of the mind or the emotional side of the patient.  This same idea applies all the way down the various factors that go into making up the whole person.

It isn’t that the exercise prescription, for example, isn’t important.  Of course it is important.  To guide a heart patient through a safe exercise program requires skill and considerable knowledge.  But to make a person whole again, something other than to walk or run faster, requires stitching together a new frame of reference.  This applies to all exercise physiology programs.  There is little doubt that exercise physiologists will eventually be met with major business opportunities arising from social responsibilities.  This is much more than a semantic shift in thinking.  It means that if exercise physiologists are to realize a “sense of professional justice,” matched with significant economic rewards, the old thinking will have to be replaced with new thinking appropriately organized around the needs of the public sector.

The 21st Century

Most, if not all, of society understand the fears, anxieties, the neuroses resulting from unhealthy states of the mind and associated emotional factors, physical sickness and disease, and psychophysiological and musculoskeletal problems resulting from dysfunctional lifestyles.  Modern life attracts problems, many without immediate solutions.  It is assumed that good physical health helps to encourage good mental health, but the assumption is not always true.  When it doesn’t hold up, it is important that impair function is met by expertise in managing the dysfunction.  This can be achieved by exercise physiologists who are willing to import ideas from outside of traditional exercise physiology thinking.

The social responsibilities of exercise physiology emerge out of the aerobic exercise message and its impact on the public’s belief that exercise will prevent disease.  The fact that it doesn’t seems to have been overlooked.  Yet, however favorable the benefits of exercise might be in the postponement of disease and/or dysfunction, the public is entitled to 21st Century thinking.  Members of the public have a right to professionals who are confident in managing lifestyle factors without being victimized for their views and/or behaviors.

The idea fashioned by science and the healthcare media that blames the patient for getting sick co-exists with the notion of prevention.  The reality, however, is that the so-called 20th Century revolutionary beliefs may be more political than scientific.  While these models are not obsolescent, exercise physiologists are encouraged to access information from a variety of professional sources and educational institutions to draw reasonable demarcation lines between truth and fiction.

What is needed are criteria by which specific answers to specific problems are attainable, particularly criteria derived from critical thinking.  Reflection, drawing conclusions, and thinking straight are more than 6-grade science and oftentimes not possible even with a college degree.  Students have become extensions of the traditional thinking process with the same difficulty in determining the right answer to a question.  They have been taught “what to think” rather than “how to” think.  The latter requires a major leap from what may be defined as a type of society-controlled and/or society-taught thinking.   Yet, the need to work through the business of thinking is an affirmation of the desire to know the right answer(s) to allow for and, perhaps, encourage the right behavior(s).  All that is needed is to yield to the temptation to think as responsible and ethical professionals.

It is incumbent, therefore, on exercise physiologists to think through which of the job possibilities that might parallel increased communication with the public and, at the same time, provide financial stability and respect.  The latter, that is, genuine respect, is fundamental to professional growth, career control, and personal contribution.  The allegiance to a profession that is ambiguous in the eyes of the public and/or demands little respect is fuzzy and poorly defined.  Hence, career options within the whole of all opportunities to work can not be good options if the public does not acknowledge it with respect.

Academic Preparation and Career Options

Although there should be no distinction among exercise physiologists who work in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation and, for example, those who work in corporate health and fitness, the division is apparent.  In part, it is the traditional inertia and influence of medicine that sets up the distinction between clinical and non-clinical.  No one should find this divide justifiable as it operates against the contribution of all exercise physiologists, their responsibilities to the public sector, and the integrity of their professional performance.

To be an exercise physiologist requires more than a “certification” to be a personal fitness trainer, jogging cloths, and other trappings of the sports world.  It requires an extensive education and competence of a higher order.  Most undergraduate students have not considered what exercise physiology is apart from the word “exercise”.  Yet, however important it is for the human being to exercise and to have safe and effective information about exercise, exercise physiologists have at their disposal specific resources that other professionals do not.  At the undergraduate level, they study such demanding subjects exercise physiology, physiological assessment, sports nutrition, biomechanics, kinesiology, statistics and research design, exercise biochemistry, stress testing and electrocardiography.  The hands-on laboratory experiences help make the exercise physiologist among the first professionals to have access to (and analysis thereof) the physiology of the body and the mind-body complex responds under different stresses.  To administer the laboratory tests correctly requires accountability and an uncompromising responsibility to the public.

The undergraduate curriculum is designed to enable the college graduate to grow, to learn, and to develop as an exercise physiology professional.  The common complaint of jobs limited to cardiac rehabilitation and the frustration of working for supervisors who are educated in the field is gradually being restructured.  In a good many programs, more supervisory positions are being filled by exercise physiologists.  There are also more jobs in the public sector outside of fitness centers.  For example, the most obvious are the exercise physiology positions with cardiac pace-maker companies.  Other positions include sales positions with drug companies, athletic and sports design, institutional consultants, managers, researchers, and lifestyle consultants to mention a few.  The interest in exercise physiology is by no means confined to clinical, although one can foresee the future with increased clinical and business-managerial jobs.  By that time the career options will be increased as exercise physiologists embrace more business opportunities.  Indeed, with national certification for exercise physiologists (as proposed by ASEP), the development potential for top-management responsibilities in health, fitness, rehabilitation, and sports will be understandably increased.

The 21st Century business of the exercise physiologist is likely to require learning new hands-on skills, new knowledge, new communication skills, and new standards of practice.  With increased ability to determine the bull’s-eye needs of the public, exercise physiologists will have the increased opportunity to impact the public’s promotion of countless ways to remain healthy and physically strong.  All that is needed is a general reduction in the fear of risk-taking.

Intuitively, the worse thing to do is blame a person for being sick.  This lack of respect for the public is apparent in the commitment to bind it to the non-manageable diseases.  It is honestly not good science and affords little benefit in acknowledging the real cause(s) of a particular disease.  Although there is little discussion of the serious gap between the potential and the actual reason for disease, the reason for most diseases is largely an unknown and complex reality.  Researchers understand this point but no one appears interested in the discussion of what isn’t known.

Even more instructive is the case of “groupthink” where researchers and professors understand the problem of not having the right answer to a given problem, but have little interest in contributing to the public’s insight of the truth.  This is a problem because, on one hand, the researchers and others are responsible to the public yet, on the other hand, they fear for their own professional careers should they tell the truth.  Nobody wants to be overlooked or considered “off-the-wall” should the inertia of the professional group manage an organized effort against the person.  Hence, exercise physiologists and others have learned to embrace the idea of not speaking out as the right thing to do for professional reasons.

This type of thinking needs changing.  Yesterday’s answers manufactured around the notion of protecting the public against itself isn’t smart thinking.  It is not only contrary to the proper communication, but fundamentally an organized industry of misinformation.  The challenge with increased health and fitness entrepreneurship is to de-structuralize the habit and/or need to control how the public thinks.  The promotion of thinking, critical thinking, is (or should be) the activity of the professional.  This should be the business of the exercise physiologist, that is, to function as an educated professional who operates on behalf of the public’s best interest.

Critical Thinking

The first of several important steps to help the exercise physiology professional think straight is to organize the undergraduate curriculum around “critical thinking”.  This demands, above all, very great discipline.  In most cases, individuals have to unlearn their way of thinking to allow for the right way to think.

Perhaps the right beginning is to stop accepting simple answers to complex questions.  Seldom will diversification adapt itself to narrowly defined commercial-type output, yet the public (and professionals) begin their day reading the newspaper and believing everything they read.  While the news is a standard part of everyday life, it is rarely an institution of absolute truth.  The contribution of material is frequently and systematically manipulated and engineered to support an activity or a belief.

There is also a constant discussion by journal editors and others about the ethics of publishing; a topic most readers of journal articles don’t think too much about.  Rather, they assume that if it is published in print form, it must be the truth.  They simply haven’t connected with the notion that publishing is a “game” to a lot of frustrated researchers who are willing to do anything to get their manuscript in print.  Hence, it is frustrating for a person to stop and take issue with whether the content is right, whether the author exposed an idea prematurely, or whether the paper is designed to market the author.  Stopping to consider the source, documentation, and the content is clearly one key to critical thinking.  It is the best way to put an end to the marketing of ideas, drugs, and research findings that are meaningless and full of hot air.

The lesson here: Admit that for most questions there are no simple answers.  There are no simple answers to most of life’s problems bears repeating.  Identifying key factors and analyzing their contributions defines the scientific building blocks of critical thinking.  Accountability for what is written and how it got there is important.  It is another key to critical thinking since it encourages responsible thinking, and the handling of ideas, research results, and conclusions with care.  It makes sense that exercise physiologists design the building blocks of the students’ education on “how to” think.

The Thinking Process

The word “thinking” implies a highly disciplined and highly structured process.  It is results oriented, and has many dimensions to it.  Ultimately, the process leads to a decision to believe in something.  Thinking, believing, and playing out possibilities are a collective team of steps and emotions with a multidimensional entity; each with its own limitations.

Organized around the notion that thinking is complementary to being accountable, the task is to satisfy minimum requirements with respect to clarity, economy, direction, understanding, decision-making, adaptability, and self-renewal.  Hence, it is grounded in structure and an organized effort to find the truth, and then to act on what is right.

Exercise physiologists need to know the truth about healthcare matters.  Everything that is published isn’t true, and some things that are not published are true.  Each exercise physiologist needs to know the difference, the reasons for getting published, the decision why some authors alter results, and how articles get published.  Clarity in thinking is by no means a simple process.  It is a form of self-discovery.  It is about responsible reading however complex the content.  It is about getting at the truth and minimizing the friction between ideas of how to live (such as exercise, how much, at what intensity, and so forth).  It is about not wasting time by understanding the process of publishing ideas that are popular.  It is about avoiding frustration when reality hits home that most published work is little more than work in progress.  In short, clarity gives rise to immediate decisions and helps in living life without having to believe the efforts of others in confirming their .

Straight thinking should require minimum effort and, thus an economy in time that encourages a clear picture of “what is what”.  It is link to a direction of vision and understanding that is efficient in scope and results oriented.  The direction in thinking discourages the tendency to cling to wrong ideas and unprofitable research thus, in brief, encourages straight thinking and achievements based on critical reflection.

As a result, the exercise physiologist understands better than others the professional responsibility and task of healthcare commitment to the public.  Each member of the American Society of Exercise Physiologists, through critical reflection, enables everyone to understand the ASEP vision.  Everyone is involved in developing exercise physiology with implications and contributions beyond the communications of the past decades.

The professional model embraced by ASEP members is the spark to convert from “what is” to “what can be” where decisions are made about the right issues at the right level to accomplish what hasn’t been done before.  ASEP is the organization to foster critical reflection and to, therefore, strengthen the thinking process.  It has the stability and the adaptability to build and to plan for the future and the continuity of the profession of exercise physiologists.

ASEP

The mission of ASEP is task-specific with a fairly small number of individuals as members of a dozen committees working to fashion changes in exercise physiology.  Their work on behalf of exercise physiologists worldwide is important to all exercise physiologists.  Where possible, each and every exercise physiologist should support them.  They have full-time jobs yet they accept responsibilities beyond their institution to sell and build the profession. They are leaders.  They are creating large-scale changes today that will be felt years from now.  They are highly receptive to the issues and concerns of the non-Ph.D., their jobs, salaries, relationships, management, deliberations, and communications.  They are highly receptive to experimentation, to ideas, and to new ways of thinking.  Exercise physiologists need leaders, leadership, and the passion to make things happen.

They understand “What the business of the exercise physiologist?” and “What the future should be?”   They understand that no organization, including ASEP, can be better than its leadership, its members, and the vision that drives it.  This understanding is an outgrowth of the ASEP Board of Directors who are acting on behalf of exercise physiologists.  The Board is responsible to the members; it is the heart of the organization.  Board members must, therefore, commit themselves totally to issues and concerns of professionalism.  It is the integral part of the functioning process of the organization.  If a Board member should fail to devote a good deal of time and attention to the members, the member will be replaced.  Above all, Board members are recruited and function at the pleasure of the organization, its vision, goals and objectives, and understandably on behalf of the ASEP members.

Functions of the Board

Board members are responsible, experienced exercise physiologists with the professional integrity, personal capacity, and proven willingness to act on behalf of all exercise physiologists.  They are the gatekeepers to ensure that standards and strategies are developed and implemented.  Board members make decisions, manage the organization’s expenditures, and utilize the strengths of the membership.  They understand the vision, the goals and objectives, and the true value of the organization.  Their legitimacy in managing the organization, its business, and, above all, the care of the organization is profound and required.  They have the power to remove incompetent or non-performing chairpersons of ASEP committees, especially should specific policies, strategies, and behaviors limit the Society’s growth and potential.  They are deeply entrenched in the aim, direction, and expected outcome of ASEP’s performance.  Board members are leaders in the field.  They may offer advice, consult, and communicate with the public and constituencies as necessary to professionally direct the organization.

Summary

Building any organization requires the top management to have significant motivational skills if enrollment is to increase.  Part of the process is specific to the information contained in this article.  It is a metamorphosis with one member at a time who shares, talks, and lives the vision twenty-four hours a day.  Clearly, it takes time, effort, dedication, and reinforcement.

But, with each new member that is the increase likelihood of enrolling more members.  One leads to five, and five leads to ten, and so forth.  After the dust clears, it becomes a recognized way of life with feelings that exercise physiologists are in this together.  They are part of something that is bigger than themselves, and thus they want to have their own professional organization.  The vision becomes their vision, their purpose, and their motivation and concern.

Exercise physiologists have a right to their own professional organization.  Moreover, it is vital to survival of exercise physiology as an emerging profession. In this regard, it is appropriate to end with the following quote by Howard Marguleas, “Never cease to pursue the opportunity to seek something different.  Don’t be satisfied with what you’re doing.  Always try to seek a way and a method to improve upon what you’re doing, even it it’s considered contrary to the traditions of an industry.”


Copyright ©1999 American Society of Exercise Physiologists. All Rights Reserved.


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