Introduction: An increased awareness to promote physical fitness, especially gym goers was recorded globally. However due regulation and the needs of fitness industry including qualified trainers, due monitoring are logging in India. This original research aims a) to obtain an insight of gym goers b) to evaluate the role of physical therapist in gym centres.

Materials and Methodology: 13 questionnaires on a 4 point scale were administered among 100 gym attendees in Chennai during JAN – JUNE 2016 on various items related to physical fitness.

Results: 66% of participants were between 21-30 years, 955 were male, 38% subjects were obese, 47% had known family history of systemic illness, 28% were smokers and alcoholics, the physical trainer was not qualified with most of the subjects unaware of the purpose of attending and no due record of progress was known to them.

Conclusion: Proper regulatory mechanism including medical screening, qualified gym trainers and job potential for physiotherapists were the major thrust of this study.

Keywords: PA – Physical Activity, ACSM – American College of Sports Medicine, WHO – World Health Organization, BMI – body mass index, USDHS – US department of health and human services, NFPT – national federation of professional trainers, CPT –certified professional trainer.

1. Renitha T.Pinto, health 2015 october, Times of India.
2. Blair; Kohl, Barlow, Gibbons , Changes in physical fitness and all cause mortality . A prospective study of healthy and unhealthy men, JAMA 1995; 273; 1093 –8
3. US department of health and human services; healthy people 2010, US depart-ment of health and human services 2000
4. Haskell WL , lee IM , Pate RR , Powell et al 2007 ; physical activity and public health ACSM , 39 (8) ; 1423 – 34 .
5. Global Study On Life Expectancy – WHO 2011
6. Mujika and Padilla 2000 ; detraining loss of training induced physiological and performance adaptations : sports med 30, 79-89
7. Dishman and Buckworm1996 ; increasing physical activity a quantitative synthesis MED scisports exer . 28; 706 – 719
8. Masse LC, Nigg c, Basen – Ergomonist, Atienza 2011, understanding the mechanism of physical activity behaviour change; pscho . sport exer. 12. 1-6
9. Bandura 2004, health promotion by cognitive means. health edu behave. 31, 143 – 164.
10. Darko , manual , mathias , fillip , renner prediction of attendance at fitness centre ; a comparision between the theory of planner behaviour, SCT , PAMT theory frontiers in psychology; 2015, vol – 6, article 121.
11. Sagarika et al , association of body composition , heart rate and aerobic fitness of mid aged male with active lifestyle IOSR J of dental and medical sciences 2014 pp 05- 08 .
12. Shepard roy .J. 1998 Ageing and exercise encylopedia of sport medicine and science
13. Pappachan et al , increasing prevalence of lifestyle diseases, high time for action Indian J.Med ref 2011 : 134 (2) ; 143- 145
14. Deana I. Melton1, Jeffrey A. Katula2, and Karen M. Mustian3 The Current State of Personal Training: an Industry Perspective of Personal Trainers in a Small Southeast Community Published in final edited form as: J Strength Cond Res. 2008 May ; 22(3): 883–889..
15. BBC news: silicon valley‘s Dave Goldberg died after gym accident . 5^th may 2015
16. Kerr ZY and Collins CL; epidemiology of weight training– related injuries presenting to United States emergency departments, 1990- 2007. am j sports med, 2010;765- 71
17. Kiran Times of India; aug 24 2014; Doctors warn of Workout injuries.

Dr S.S.Subramanian

M.P.T (Orthopaedics), M.S (Education), M. Phil (Education), Ph.D (Physiotherapy),

The Principal, Sree Balaji College of Physiotherapy, Chennai – 100
Affiliated To (Bharath) University, BIHER Chennai – 73

Email: S.S.Subramanian@hotmail.com, subramanian.podhigai1968@gmail.com
Phone: 99400 47137