Our top takeaways from 1 season and 10 episodes talking with experts and leaders across the Movement Health industry.
Season 1 of Movement Health Matters
We recently wrapped up a limited series of interviews with experts, leaders and pioneers in the emerging field of Movement Health. We know that movement health matters. Our goal is that, after listening along, you will too.
Over the course of 10 interviews, we noticed a few important trends and threads of connectivity for movement health across this diverse set of people, industries and areas of expertise.
1. Scaling health solutions is one of those simple – but not easy – problems
At this point in time, most of us have a general idea of what is needed to “be healthy” – exercise, movement, eating well, sleeping well, and having balance in all facets of our lives. But the trends around obesity and other chronic diseases show that an increasing number of us are heading in the wrong direction.
Why? Many of our guests shared their thoughts and, more importantly, ideas for how to move forward to build effective solutions that can scale for the general population.
“The missing piece often for people, it's not the ingredients, but the method in the recipe for health. It's how to take those ingredients that we know are important and implement them into our day-to-day lives, and make them last.”
– Dr. Heather McKee, Episode 10
“Companies need to figure out how to bridge that gap between access, and then making it affordable, and then making it good enough that somebody is motivated to continue to do it. It it's one of those simple, not easy problems.”
– Joe Vennare, Episode 3
2. Movement Health has many definitions
One question we asked all of our guests was, “how would you define movement health?” We received 10 different answers, which goes to show that movement health can mean many things to many people.
“Guidance from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention sums it up perfectly: move more and sit less.”
– Courtenay Higgins, Episode 4
“A lot of folks are like, I can't do what Joel Embiid does. And I’m like, I do not want you to do that. You don’t have to show up in front of 20,000 people every night. You just have to get up and be able to go to work, or you have to get up and be able to play with your kids. Even going for a walk for 20 or 30 minutes. That’s something I consider movement health.”
– Ben Kenyon, Episode 5
“Movement health is uninhibited movement as it relates to a goal, and I think you'd then have to specify it for certain populations.”
– Silvia Blemker, Episode 7
“Movement health, to me, is always managing the worst thing that you do.”
– Tom Waller, Episode 6
3. We continue to invest in building things for the already-fit, but the status quo isn’t working
The growth in fitness technology during the pandemic largely served the same group of people: the already fit and the 1% of early adopters looking for the latest trends to optimize their health and wellbeing.
Unfortunately, we learned that most of these platforms and products don’t work for the majority of people who are looking for more realistic and accessible ways to bring movement and exercise into their lives.
“Most fitness technology that comes out serves a very specific population: usually people like me who are already fit, we're already doing things and are interested in measuring the newest thing. But these technologies aren’t doing much to help move the majority of the population in the right direction. What technologies are missing is that it is still on the end-user to put all of the pieces together.”
– PJ Nestler, Episode 2
Thankfully, it seems as though things are trending in the right direction.
“I work on a lot of digital wellbeing programs, and what I'm seeing now is that companies are making a shift from wellbeing as a tick box exercise, whereas now they're seeing it like they see leadership, or other areas of their organization, they're seeing it as training, they're seeing well being as a skill to be developed.”
– Dr. Heather McKee, Episode 10
4. Fitness, exercise and movement need to be positioned properly
There is a reason so many health platforms position themselves as behaviour change services. Most, if not all, preventable health conditions are related to underlying motivations and habits that are highly personal and individual.
Solutions need to take into account the mechanisms behind habit formation and behaviour change to create lasting, scalable impact. This includes important things like engagement, fun, community and connection.
“We need to find ways to bring excitement and happiness and enthusiasm to movement, because that is the biggest driver of compliance. And once we've got compliance, then we can start having the conversation around the best exercise or the best drill we should be doing.”
– Dr. Duncan French, Episode 9
“We are trying to go from description to prescription, so that a person understands that with a very small investment in themselves, frequently, over time, they have the ability to avoid the pill, avoid the surgery, avoid the visit, and that flows upstream where they can avoid the pain altogether.”
– Courtenay Higgins, Episode 4
“The overarching problem in health and fitness, especially from the consumer side, is that people often aren’t willing to do the things that benefit them in the first place. We know that we should be exercising more, we should be sleeping better, we should be eating our vegetables, but most people don't act in their own best interests.”
– Joe Vennare, Episode 3
5. Movement Health matters
Movement health is for everybody and every body. As a core part of our mission and values at movr, it was motivating to hear the same message delivered in different ways from such an educated, respected and experienced group of leaders in Season 1.
“It's not about how long you live per se. It's pre-programmed. It's how long you live well, right? That's what you can control. That's what you have the power over. There's nothing that's been shown to impact quality of life more than one thing. It's called exercise. It's called movement. If you move, you maintain the machine longer. The brain, the kidneys, the heart, the muscles, the nerves, everything. So when you think about, you know, aging and living the life you want to lead, there's no magic medication. But there is movement.”
– Dr. Tim Church, Episode 1
“Movement is a big foundation. It's one of the best starting points because there are so many benefits that you see right off the bat. There's just so much good positive momentum, it's really a keystone habit that builds into these other important habits. It’s definitely a place that I really like to start.”
– PJ Nestler, Episode 2
Season 1 Recap
After a jam-packed season of 10 episodes with incredible guests from across the health landscape, we've learned a lot.
5 Takeaways About Movement Health
Season 1 Podcast Episodes
Coming Fall 2023, we'll dig deeper into these themes and discussions with another set of health leaders on Season 2 of Movement Health Matters.
Stay tuned!
movr is a movement health technology company. Our goal is to help measurably improve musculoskeletal health with innovative technology solutions within an ever-changing health space.
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