Simplifying Exercise Prescription & Adherence for Therapists with Mike James – The Endurance Physio

Who is this course for?

This course is designed for Physiotherapists, Sports Therapists, Chiropractors, Osteopaths and Exercise Professionals working with musculoskeletal (MSK) populations.

What will you gain?

Participants will leave the course with greater confidence, clarity and competence in exercise prescription, adherence and communication, with practical skills that can be applied across a wide range of MSK populations.

Course Overview

In a profession saturated with complexity, data and mixed messaging, this course brings therapists back to the core of effective rehabilitation: understanding why, how and when to prescribe exercise, and how to make it stick.

Participants will learn how to:

• Master the fundamentals of exercise reasoning, rather than relying on protocols.
• Apply behavioural science to real-world adherence.
• Understand the core barriers and facilitators to exercise adherence.
• Break free from the ‘robot rehab’ prescription that can plague the industry.
• Build flexible frameworks that work across different conditions and settings.
• Communicate the value of exercise clearly and collaboratively.
• Build habit-forming, meaningful rehabilitation programmes that fit into patients’ lives.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

1. Identify common pitfalls in exercise prescription and avoid them through structured reasoning.
2. Understand and apply the Minimal Effective Dose, including how to progress or regress logically.
3. Integrate behaviour change and interviewing principles into daily practice.
4. Build exercise adherence through nudge theory, autonomy and goal ownership.
5. Design micro → meso → macro progression models adaptable to individual patients.
6. Use simple, low-cost monitoring and reflection strategies to support better follow-up and outcomes.

Course Design Philosophy

The course follows a Learn → Apply → Reflect → Integrate model:
• Learn: theory & evidence, simplified
• Apply: practical workshops
• Reflect: group discussion and clinical reasoning
• Integrate: frameworks and case-based learning

Your Tutor

Mike James, widely known as ‘The Endurance Physio’, is a Specialist Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist, educator and endurance coach.

A former Military Physical Training Instructor and rehabilitation specialist, Mike holds Master’s-level qualifications in Physiotherapy and Sports Medicine and lectures on the Physiotherapy programme at the University of South Wales.

His particular interests include exercise prescription, behaviour change and helping clinicians turn evidence into practical, effective rehabilitation that works in the real world.