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The Most Important Part Of Prescribing An Exercise Program

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Exercise Assessment The most important part of prescribing an exercise program is the proper assessment of the client to ensure they are physically, mentally, and healthy enough to engage in a certain type of program. With any female client 55 years of age or older, risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) should always be assessed. This will help determine how to properly proceed with the development of an exercise program. According to the ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription, reviewing health and medical history is the first step in assessing risk for CVD (American College of Sports Medicine, 2014). If there is a known disease this puts a person at an immediate high risk for CVD and special precautions should be …show more content…

A normal BMI range is 18.5-24.9; less than 18.5 is underweight; 25-29.9 is overweight; and greater than or equal to 30 is considered obese. These values are important to remember and keeping in mind those with a low BMI (less than 18.5) greatly increases their risk for fractures in the pelvis and ribs (Compston et al., 2014) .
After assessing an individual’s health status and risk for CVD, as well as gathering anthropometric data, getting more specific with evaluating specific risks related to osteoporosis would be the next step. With individuals who have osteoporosis, assessing their risk for falls and fractures are two very important objectives to developing an exercise prescription. A low BMI may tell you that an individual is at an increased risk but there is much more that should be considered in this assessment process. Knowing the history of a client is important and understanding that with any type of previous fracture will also automatically increase the individual’s risk for reoccurring fractures. Also, by simply looking at someone’s standing stance can be an indicator as well, if their stance is narrower there is a better chance of losing balance and if the stance is wider the person will be more stable. I one year study observing the fall predictions in 225 female and 45 male elderly individuals with an average age of 73 years showed that the

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