Join us Wednesday, October 4 at 3:00pm ET for a live, interactive tweetchat with Greg Wells, PhD, on how to help patients make sense of all the exercise-related information found online and elsewhere. Topics to be discussed are subject to change but will likely include:

  • Examples of exercise fads that clinicians should steer their patients away from.
  • Exercise suggestions that physicians should be making for their patients.
    • How physicians can start the exercise conversation with their patients.
    • Whether, and how, physicians may tailor exercise recommendations for different diseases or health challenges.
  • Whether wearable fitness trackers and smartphone exercise apps are a help or hindrance.
  • The pros and cons of high-intensity interval training.
  • The pros and cons of strength training.
  • The pros and cons of flexibility training.
  • Whether the recent explosion in the popularity of yoga, including hot yoga, is good, bad, or neither.
  • How clinicians can help patients cut through all the noise on the internet about the latest exercise and fitness fads.
  • Why it is important to help patients “get back to basics” on exercise.
  • The types of exercise clinicians should be recommending to their patients.
  • Where clinicians should direct their patients online for reliable exercise information.
  • More…

How to Join the Chat

  1. Log into your Twitter account. Don’t have an account? Where have you been?! Just kidding, we don’t judge, but you should get one! It’s easy to create, and free. You’ll be glad you did.
  2. A couple minutes before 3:00pm ET on October 4, Search Twitter (top right of every Twitter page) for #PWChat.
  3. On the search results page, click Latest at the top left. This will show you all the latest tweets using the #PWChat hashtag. The page will automatically update every couple minutes, letting you know how many new tweets there are using the #PWChat hashtag.
  4. Answer questions, reply to other’s comments, or make a comment of your own as much and as often as you like. Just make sure to leave room to include #PWChat to make sure what your tweet is included in the chat. Otherwise, it won’t be seen.
  5. While you’re at it, be sure to follow @physicianswkly and @drgregwells!


About Dr. Wells

As a scientist, broadcaster, author, coach and athlete, Dr. Greg Wells has dedicated his career to understanding human performance and how the human body responds to extreme conditions.

Dr. Wells is an assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Toronto where he studies elite sport performance. He also serves as an associate scientist of physiology and experimental medicine at The Hospital for Sick Children where he leads the Exercise Medicine Research Program. There, he and his team explore how to use exercise to prevent, diagnose and treat chronic illnesses in children. Previously, he served as the director of sport science at the Canadian Sport Institute, and taught elite sport coaches at the National Coaching Institute.

Throughout his career, Dr. Wells has coached, trained and inspired dozens of elite athletes to win medals at World Championships, the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics. He has studied athletic performance in some of the most severe conditions on the planet, like the Andes Mountains and the Sahara Desert.

Dr. Wells has had his own personal experience with the challenges and opportunities of adversity and human extremes. Late in his high school career, he broke his neck in a freak accident while swimming in the ocean and was in a halo brace before undergoing neurosurgery. Told by his doctor that he would never perform as an athlete again, he went on to compete at the international level in swimming. He has competed in events such as the Nanisivik Marathon – 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle – Ironman Canada, and the Tour D’Afrique, a grueling 11,000-kilometre event that is the longest bike race in the world.

Dr. Wells is the author of Superbodies: Peak Performance Secrets from the World’s Best Athletes (HarperCollins, June 26, 2012), which explores how genetics and DNA, the brain, muscles, lungs, heart and blood work together in extreme conditions. His latest book is The Ripple Effect (HarperCollins, April 4, 2017) which is a fascinating look at the power of simple changes to transform your health and performance, drawing on Wells’ world-class scientific and athletic expertise.

A sought after speaker on the topic of human performance, Dr. Wells has spoken at top events like TEDX and the Titan Summit, alongside Sir Richard Branson, Robin Sharma and Steve Wozniak.

Dr. Wells is a frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail and has been an expert source to other top media outlets like ABC News, “20/20,” The Discovery Channel, TSN, CBC and CTV. He also served as the sports medicine analyst for the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Consortium for the 2010 and 2012 Olympic Games.

Author