New Episode Drop! 🎙️
Get ready for one of our most practical and powerful conversations yet on The Medical Fitness Podcast.

We’re joined by Raina Childers-Richmond — registered dietitian, certified health coach, and a true pioneer in integrating nutrition, behavior change, and fitness inside medically integrated centers.

With nearly three decades of experience, Raina brings frontline insights you won't hear anywhere else.

In this episode, we dive deep into:

• Supporting clients on anti-obesity medications (GLP-1s and beyond): What fitness and wellness professionals must know, how to stay in scope, and why empathy matters more than ever.
• Nutrition for active aging and women’s health: Practical strategies to support women through perimenopause, menopause, and beyond — an underserved population that needs better solutions.
• Redefining medical fitness centers: How to transform your facility into a true health home, connecting nutrition, exercise, mental health, and healthcare access.
• Collaboration vs. Scope Creep: How fitness pros and dietitians can work together better — respecting boundaries, enhancing client outcomes, and building stronger communities.
• Building engagement that lasts: Real-world examples of programming that supports year-long member retention, lifestyle change, and patient trust.
• Emerging Trends: Why the future of medical fitness lies in longevity, healthspan optimization, and personalized programming.

Whether you’re a fitness professional, clinician, program director, or health leader, this episode will leave you thinking differently about how to serve your clients and patients more effectively — and humanely.

🎧 Tune in wherever you get your podcasts — this is a conversation the medical fitness industry needs right now.

🗓️ Plus: If you want to connect with Raina in person and dig even deeper into these topics, catch her live at the MFA Central Region Summit in Owensboro, Kentucky this June!

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🚨 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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