🚨 NEW EPISODE ALERT — Season 3, Episode 8 🎙️

The Medical Fitness Podcast
Powered by the Medical Fitness Association + the Medicine-Rehab-Fitness Institute

🎧 Guest: Dr. Jessica Matthews
🎓 Tenured Professor, Program Director – M.S. Integrative Wellness, Point Loma Nazarene University
🏥 Clinical + Research Appointment – UC San Diego Health
🏆 Former Board Member – ACLM & National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching

In this powerhouse episode, we sit down with returning guest and long-time friend of the show, Dr. Jessica Matthews — one of the nation’s top voices in integrative health, health behavior change, and lifestyle medicine.

🔊 What you’ll hear:

✅ Why most traditional healthcare education STILL misses the mark on health behavior change – and how Dr. Matthews built a nationally recognized grad program to fix it
✅ How clinicians and fitness professionals can stop “practicing in silos” and start collaborating effectively
✅ What health and wellness coaching really is — and how it can be implemented successfully into clinical care workflows
✅ The exact skill gaps that are holding many health professionals back from effectively guiding patients through sustainable lifestyle change
✅ A raw and personal look at how Dr. Matthews’ family experiences with chronic disease + recovery shape everything she teaches
✅ Behind the scenes of UC San Diego Health’s coaching integration model — plus barriers, reimbursement challenges, and scalable strategies

🧠 Whether you’re a clinician, coach, educator, or fitness pro, this episode will challenge your assumptions, sharpen your perspective, and ignite your sense of what’s possible when we get behavior change right.

🎯 Big themes:
• Communication as clinical competency
• Interdisciplinary training done right
• Coaching mindset > authority mindset
• Dosing lifestyle medicine for real-world results
• Bridging healthcare and fitness through trust + workflow alignment

🗣️ “You can’t expect clinicians to refer unless you understand their pain points—and their workflow.”
🗣️ “Lifestyle medicine DOES work—when it’s dosed appropriately and supported by the right systems.”
🗣️ “We don’t need more buzzwords. We need more collaboration.”
🗣️ “My mom went from an A1C of 13 to under 5.7—and she was given a 1% chance to live.”

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🚨 NEW EPISODE – Season 3, Episode 7 of the Medical Fitness Podcast
🎙️ “Muscle as Medicine: Strength Training for Health & Longevity”

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Featuring Dr. Rachele Pojednic
Powered by the Medical Fitness Association and the MRF Institute

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What happens when an Ivy League scientist, Harvard educator, Stanford faculty member, and lifelong fitness advocate steps into the medical fitness conversation? You get an unforgettable episode with Dr. Rachele Pojednic—who brings the receipts and the passion.

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This episode is a deep dive into why skeletal muscle is one of the most powerful, underrated tools we have to combat chronic disease, improve metabolic health, and extend healthspan. Rachele breaks it down in a way both clinicians and fitness professionals can use immediately in practice.

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🔬 Topics we cover:

• Why muscle is a critical organ, not just tissue for movement
• The role of resistance training in metabolism, glucose regulation, and insulin sensitivity
• Landmark studies on high-intensity training in the oldest old—and what they prove about aging and adaptation
• The massive gap in female-specific research on strength training and performance, and how that’s finally changing
• Common myths that still dominate the fitness industry around women and lifting
• Why postmenopausal women CAN build muscle (despite outdated claims to the contrary)
• Training strategies for special populations, including women with MS, older adults, and post-surgical clients
• Why there’s no single perfect protocol—and how to find what works across life stages
• How protein intake, carbohydrate balance, and nutritional literacy impact strength, performance, and body composition
• The damaging effects of “optimization” culture and one-size-fits-all thinking in fitness and health

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Rachele also shares personal insights from working in both academia and the wellness industry, and how bridging those silos is essential for real impact. She gets blunt (and refreshingly honest) about the social conditioning that keeps women away from strength training—and what we can all do to change that narrative.

This is one of those episodes you’ll want to share with your clients, patients, students, and colleagues. If you're a clinician, strength coach, trainer, or anyone working at the intersection of medicine and movement, this conversation is mandatory listening.

📍 Listen now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts
🔗 Full episode + show notes linked in bio
👥 Follow Dr. Pojednic at @rachelepojednic and rachelepojednic.com
🧠 Learn more about the MRF Institute and the work we're doing to connect medicine, rehab, and fitness

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🔥 NEW EPISODE ALERT! 🔥

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Season 3, Episode 6 of the Medical Fitness Podcast just dropped, and we’re bringing back a powerhouse guest—Dr. Rick Howard! 🎙️💪

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Rick is a leader in applied sports science, strength & conditioning, and long-term athletic development—and when he talks, people listen! 👏

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This episode dives into game-changing strategies for increasing physical activity at every stage of life, from childhood through older adulthood. We cover:

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🚀 The National Physical Activity Plan—How the Physical Activity Alliance is working to make physical activity a national priority, and what you can do at the local level to help.
📍 State-Level Action in Motion—How initiatives like New York Moves and Play Move Thrive are creating real change by tailoring fitness strategies to local communities.
🏋️‍♂️ Strength & Conditioning for ALL—Why it’s not just for athletes, and how coaches, clinicians, and fitness pros can integrate evidence-based training for lifelong health.
🤝 Breaking Down Silos—Why collaboration and collective impact are essential to getting people moving and shifting public health trends.
🏅 The Role of Qualified Professionals—How NSCA, ACSM, SHAPE America, and other leading organizations are stepping up to improve fitness education and programming.

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💡 This episode is packed with insights for:
✔️ Clinicians looking to integrate fitness into healthcare
✔️ Strength coaches & trainers who want to bridge the gap between sports performance and public health
✔️ Educators & policymakers working to improve youth and adult fitness
✔️ Anyone who cares about making movement a priority across the lifespan

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🔥 Don’t miss this powerful conversation with Dr. Rick Howard!

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📢 Tag a colleague who needs to hear this!

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