When I have an existing health problem, I want to train without making it worse, so I do not choose between sitting still and taking a risk.

Job context

Who

Someone with a condition or an old injury

When

At every session

Trigger

A session that aggravated the old problem

Situation

General advice does not apply to them

Constraints

Not training also makes things worse

5 Pains

• No idea which movements are safe for them

  High

  Learned only once it hurts.

  Root cause: Nobody has assessed their particular case

• The doctor says exercise without saying what

  High

  The advice stops at the general.

  Root cause: Doctors have neither the time nor the tools to prescribe a programme

• Trainers lack the medical background

  High

  So they either avoid it or guess.

  Root cause: The two professions are trained separately

• Fear of training leads to less movement

  High

  And less movement makes it worse.

  Root cause: The risk of training is visible and the risk of sitting still is not

• No sense of what level of pain is normal

  Medium

  Muscle soreness and injury pain are hard to tell apart.

  Root cause: There is no scale distinguishing the two kinds of pain

5 Desired Outcomes

• Know which movements are safe for their condition

  Functional

• Receive specific guidance rather than generalities

  Functional

• Have someone who understands both medicine and training

  Social

• Move enough without making it worse

  Functional

• Tell ordinary soreness from a warning

  Functional

5 Existing Solutions

A solution is not the same thing as a product, a customer can hire a behaviour or a workaround too.

• Ask the treating doctor

  Service

  The safest source, whose answer usually stops at the general.

• Train with a rehabilitation specialist

  Service

  The right professional, with very few sessions covered.

• Research their own condition

  Behaviour

  The one route always available, leading into the same contradictory pile.

• Train very lightly to be safe

  Workaround

  Avoids the immediate risk and is not enough to improve anything.

• Stop at the first sign of pain

  Behaviour

  The only self-applicable safety rule, unable to tell the two pains apart.

2 Opportunity Gaps

• There is medicine for the ill and fitness for the well; the middle, someone with a condition who still wants to train, belongs to neither profession.

  Why existing solutions fail: Doctors are not paid to prescribe a training programme and trainers are not insured to take a medical case, so both sides step back and the person in the middle has nobody.

  Potential opportunity: A role between the two, qualified enough to accept a medical referral and practical enough to run the session.

• No scale exists for telling ordinary soreness from pain that signals damage, though that is the decision a trainee must make every session.

  Why existing solutions fail: The line differs by person and by condition, so nobody will publish a general scale, and its absence pushes trainees to two extremes: ignoring all pain or stopping at every sensation.

  Potential opportunity: A scale built for one person's condition with a specialist, reusable at every session.