Response to the Letter to the Editor

Abstract

Dear Drs. Carayannopoulos and Burdenko: Please accept our most humble thanks for your recent letter to the editor of ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal® regarding our reflections on the 10th anniversary of ACSM’s Exercise is Medicine® program. We agree that aquatic exercise is an incredibly beneficial form of exercise that can be equally effective as an exercise modality and for its therapeutic effects. Our colleague and editorial board member Mary E. Sanders, Ph.D., FACSM, reminds us all the time about the “liquid weight room.” Stay tuned for more articles written about this important topic to appear in future issues of the Journal. ACSM’s Exercise is Medicine® program will continue to promote all forms of exercise. ACSM has several initiatives underway that support aquatic exercise including a visit and presentation by the all-time Olympic gold medal record holder (23 of them) Michael Phelps at the 2017 ACSM Annual Meeting in Denver. Since the Denver meeting, ACSM has signed the Pool Safely pledge (https://www.poolsafely.gov/), which is a project coordinated by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, and assigned a Presidential Task Force on Pool Safety, Aquatic Fitness, and Exercise. Holly J. Benjamin, M.D., FACSM (an ACSM vice president, very well-respected physician from Chicago, and aquatic fitness enthusiast) is heading up the task force. We are very excited to hear their recommendations about how ACSM can make an even greater impact in this area. We also have recently appointed a Presidential Task Force on Inclusion, which will analyze what ACSM is doing, and what ACSM can be doing, in reaching all people regardless of ability (which will certainly include water exercise). Cheri A. Blauwet, M.D. (Harvard-trained physician and paralympic champion), is heading up that task force. As you can see, ACSM is dedicated to promoting exercise in many ways. For all the great reasons you mentioned in your letter, we cannot (and will not) exclude the great benefits of aquatic exercise. Thanks again for your letter and support of ACSM’s Exercise is Medicine® program. Walter R. Thompson, Ph.D., FACSM Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA Adrian Hutber, Ph.D. Exercise is Medicine®, Indianapolis, IN Mark Stoutenberg, Ph.D. University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, TN