#41. Dr. Ciaran Fairman. Anchoring strength training in the real world.

Andrew had a great conversation with Dr. Ciaran Fairman, PhD, CSCS about how to make exercise meaningful and why so many assumptions about exercise optimisation don't resonate with regular people. Ciaran spoke about the difference between applying either a physiological or behavioural lens to exercise prescription and how sometimes exercise specialists fail to think about real life barriers and enablers.We discussed Ciaran's paper, 'A practical framework for the design of resistance exercise interventions in oncology research settings—a narrative review.', which he describes as a distillation of everything he's learned over his career.I wanted to speak with Ciaran because during our research in developing Strong For Life, we realised the most exercise programmes don't consider the needs and limitations of people who are trying to engage with exercise for the first time. His paper aligns with a lot of what we have learned regarding how to structure home programmes for people who aren't interested in going to a gym. His ideas also tie into our next project, Capabilities for Life. It's an episode that we'll end up using in our courses as a resource for discussing public health, exercise prescription, implementation science and social determinants of health.