Jobs / Healthcare / 29-1128.00
Exercise Physiologists
Assess, plan, or implement fitness programs that include exercise or physical activities such as those designed to improve cardiorespiratory function, body composition, muscular strength, muscular endurance, or flexibility.
- US jobs
- 8,560
- Median wage
- $59,460 a year
- Job family
- Healthcare
Can agents do the work of exercise physiologists?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:
- Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Explain exercise program or physiological testing procedures to participants.
- Develop exercise programs to improve participant strength, flexibility, endurance, or circulatory functioning, in accordance with exercise science standards, regulatory requirements, and credentialing requirements.
- Provide clinical oversight of exercise for participants at all risk levels.
- Provide emergency or other appropriate medical care to participants with symptoms or signs of physical distress.
- Interview participants to obtain medical history or assess participant goals.
- Demonstrate correct use of exercise equipment or performance of exercise routines.
- Prescribe individualized exercise programs, specifying equipment, such as treadmill, exercise bicycle, ergometers, or perceptual goggles.
- Interpret exercise program participant data to evaluate progress or identify needed program changes.
- Conduct stress tests, using electrocardiograph (EKG) machines.
- Recommend methods to increase lifestyle physical activity.
- Assess physical performance requirements to aid in the development of individualized recovery or rehabilitation exercise programs.
- Measure oxygen consumption or lung functioning, using spirometers.
Other job titles for this occupation (18)
Bariatric Weight Loss Counselor · Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Practitioner · Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Therapist · Certified Exercise Physiologist (Certified EP) · Clinical Cardiac Exercise Physiologist · Clinical Exercise Physiologist · Clinical Exercise Specialist · Exercise Scientist · Exercise Specialist · Lifestyle and Weight Management Consultant · Applied Exercise Physiologist · Cardiac Exercise Physiologist · Cardiac Exercise Specialist · Cardiac Rehabilitation Exercise Physiologist · Exercise Planner · Fitness Specialist · Registered Clinical Exercise Physiologist (REPC) · Sports Physiologist