Therapeutic Exercise

Greek Central Council of Health, in a recent decision 3/270/6.7.2018, recognizes 3 therapeutic modalities, namely Therapeutic Exercise, Spa Medicine and Acupuncture as “Complementary Medicine” rather than alternative methods in the Complementary and Alternative Medicine – CAM complex. However, six years later, the “Terms and Conditions for practicing the above-mentioned medical activities” have not yet been defined and some believe that they never will. Nevertheless, this upgrade is definitely important.

Therapeutic Exercise is now a self-evident part of the armamentarium of physicians for a variety of disorders. Hopefully, no obese and/or smoker physician will ever again start writing prescriptions without even clinically examining the patient or without ever suggesting other non-pharmacological interventions for correcting or remedying the patient’s disorder. Therapeutic Exercise is expected to be prescribed by a physician, although this is not necessarily a good thing, since security coverage, whether social or private, may overrule the needs of the patient.

Terms and conditions remain to be determined, mostly about the providers of Therapeutic Exercise, gymnasts – Physical Education – PE graduates or physical therapists – PTs, probably leaving no room for physicians wanting to actively participate in providing this new modality.

There is strong evidence that brisk walking (not jogging) is quite efficacious in reducing high blood pressure – HBP (among other benefits) and commonsense dictates that this intervention should be tried first, before even thinking of starting a drug regimen. When was the last time your physician gave you advice about exercise rather than pills?

Simply clenching your fists may equally reduce HBP. Now, imagine if you could combine Low Intensity Aerobic Exercise with intermittent clenching of the fists. Does it ring a bell? How about Martial Arts in general and Taekwon-Do in particular? How about performing the first and simplest of the 24 patterns of ITF, named “Chon-Ji” or “Heaven and Earth” until you actually feel the energy of Heaven running down to Earth through your body? How about specializing the current approach “Exercise is Medicine” into “Taekwon-Do is Medicine”?