On my placement with Community Physiotherapy Services I was able to observe and run several different exercise classes. I got to see many different styles of leadership in a class and among several different levels of abilities among the clients.
I learnt that one of the most important aspects of running a class is the level at which you aim the class. I thought that I would share a few of the tips that were given to me.
First you need to know what the age group you are targeting is. However this may be misleading as you will need to look into the various conditions of the patients. Even by looking at these two factors you will not be able to tell the functional level of the clients/patients. This information might be gained from a handover from a previous physio. If there is no handover available to you my advice would be to take it easy for the first few sessions and observe the clients carefully as they walk into and out of the class and their participation during the class. Once you have gauged the client’s different functional abilities you need to structure the class around these. The class should be targeted towards the lowest functioning individual and then progressions made available for the higher functioning individuals within the class. This becomes difficult when you have a large class or if the difference between the clients is quite significant. If one or two of the clients are much more able than anyone else in the class you might want to consider different options such as attending a gym or community exercise class.
One of the physiotherapists I observed took an aquatic exercise class and she targeted her class very highly. I found it quite a challenge keeping up with her and wondered how all the little old ladies were keeping up. I asked her about this after the class and she said to me that she liked to make the class a challenge so that everyone in the class would progress. She stated that even if they were unable to perform some of the tasks they would be putting in 100% to attempt them as opposed to putting in a smaller amount of effort doing tasks they could already do. I thought that this was an interesting point and made me think about how I target my classes. I hope that all of this info helps. But bear in mind that she has been practising physio for many years and has been taking these classes for a long time. We don’t quite have that experience yet so still err on the side of caution.
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4 comments:
Thats a good point. Which way do you go, more challenging or less challenging to allow you to progress the exericse? Just one point I have observed when challenging my clients too much is that the quality of their movement may decrease. Yes they may be working hard, but the aim of the exercise has been lost. I haven't had much experience with exercise classes but I could imagine with some clients their quality of movement may be even less as they are trying to keep up with the class and are also recieving less feedback and correction of their technique. I hope that makes sense??
As a physio student but also a group exeercise instructor, I have learnt from experience that it is very difficult to cater for every single persons fitness level. So the best you can do is cater at an intermediate level, but offer alternatives for easier and harder versions of your exercises. If you do it this way, you will encourage the slower/older/unfit clients to really push themselves, but they have the option to drop back a bit when they need to. Hope that helps
yes making the class as chalenging as possible is how you get the best results, it means the petients who are at a higher level dont deteriorate. it helps to have exercises which can be changed slightly to make something easier eg weights or give the option of gaving a stick (for balancing) so that everyone is doing the same exercise but at a level challenging to them. with my group classes they were for stroke patients so at times you do have to make it suited to the lowest level for safety but even trying thigs that you feel will be too hard can sometimes surprise you.
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