PHYSIQUE AND BRAIN INJURY RESEARCH

Pete, the owner and head coach at Physique is passionate about helping people to become fitter, healthier and stronger.

He has been actively involved as a Lead investigator and has helped to develop the Australian physical activity clinical practice guideline for people with moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries.

The guideline provides recommendations for physical activity interventions for children and adolescents (5 to 17), adults (18 years or older) and older adults (65 years or older) with a moderate to severe brain injury. The guideline is intended to help health professionals support people to improve participation in physical activity, leading to improved health and social outcomes.

This guideline was co-developed by a team of researchers in collaboration health professionals, support workers, staff from government funding bodies of physical activity interventions, and community-based deliverers of physical activity programs.

The guideline has been approved by the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Physiotherapy Association, Exercise & Sports Science Australia, and Rehabilitation Medicine Society of Australian and New Zealand.

​Physique played an important role in the research project and are still pioneering exercise programmes and sessions to help people who have suffered a brain injury.

For adults and older adults after moderate to severe traumatic brain injury, the guideline recommend individually- tailored muscle strengthening exercise, including ballistic training, across the continuum of care.

For very weak muscles, strength training is set-up to make it as easy as possible to elicit muscle activity (e.g., reducing friction, reducing or removing gravity, working in mid-range, electrical stimulation and/or electromyographic biofeedback, and supported weight bearing) and high repetitions are encouraged.

Health professionals are to consider the muscle groups involved, and their function, when developing muscle strength training programs to improve mobility and other functional tasks together with considering the specificity of training (i.e., power vs strength vs endurance) when prescribing mode of muscle strength training.

For further information on the guidelines go to: https://www.imh.org.au/bridges

Or contact us at Physique for further information on what we can do for you.