National Health and Fitness Day – an annual coast-to-coast celebration of wellness – is held on the first Saturday of June. To inspire you to be active on June 7, today’s Arthritis At Home will feature the #CRArthritis interview with Dr. Manuel Ester (Manny).
Manny is a post-doctoral associate working with Dr. Claire Barber at the University of Calgary’s McCaig Institute for Bone and Joint Health. Manny shares highlights from a workshop he co-presented at the 2025 Canadiana Rheumatology Association’s Annual Scientific Meeting with Dr. Barber called “Moving More with Inflammatory Arthritis: The Benefits of Physical Activity and Strategies for Supporting Physical Activity Behaviour Change”.
The key objective of the workshop was to provide arthritis health care professionals with evidence-based strategies to encourage and support people living with arthritis to become more physically active and ultimately improving their health and quality of life. Manny also shares with us some of the most effective behaviour change strategies that help people with inflammatory arthritis “move more” and sustain an active lifestyle over the long term, including motivation techniques, goal setting, and using technology to get started on exercise programs.
Additional learning resource
- ACE Survey on Arthritis and Exercise
- JointHealth™ Education: Arthritis and Exercise
- Arthritis patient exercise program
- 2018 EULAR recommendations for physical activity in people with inflammatory arthritis and osteoarthritis
- Exercise Guide for arthritis health providers