Editorial: Exercise for chronic musculoskeletal pain: time to prescribe with precision

Approximately 1.7 billion people worldwide live with musculoskeletal (MSK) pain,1 contributing to a high socioeconomic burden exceeding €250 billion in Europe2 and US$180 billion in the USA.3 Beyond financial costs, individuals experience lost productivity, early retirement and reduced social well-being due to limitations in mobility and participation in society.4 Current clinical practice guidelines emphasise non-pharmacological and non-surgical treatments for managing chronic MSK conditions like back pain, neck pain and osteoarthritis.5 Among these, exercise-based treatment options are inexpensive, easily accessible and induce small-to-moderate yet clinically relevant improvements in chronic MSK pain disorders.6 Improvements observed with exercise training can be comparable to, or even exceed, those achieved with other conservative interventions such as manual therapy, education, electrophysical and psychological therapies.6 7 Despite the recognised benefits of exercise training, the translation of research into clinical practice is impaired by ongoing deficiencies in study reporting, as evidenced in our recent umbrella review.8.