Fatigue and Exercise
We often associate exercise with boot camp and gyms however, if you are suffering with health condition that seems like the worst scenario you could find yourself in. Even though there are staff to help in gyms they often are not trained or have experienced the medical condition and therefore have limited empathy as to what the person is going through.
The one symptom that we have come across often is fatigue and lack of energy levels. This can be associated with many health conditions such as fibryomygia, EDS (Ehlers-Danlos syndrome), ME and recovering from cancer. The conditions are endless. So how do we manage these symptoms with exercise?
1. The first point that needs to be considered is to listen to your body. Start slow and build gradually. Even if it is a few minutes at a time, small steps at a time.
2. Don’t overdo the exercise. This a common misconception that the harder and longer I work the better it will be. Overdoing it with fatigue has far more knock on effect in your daily life than someone without the symptoms.
3. Allow plenty of breaks during exercise to allow your body to recover between each exercise. Recovery is important so you can carry out the exercise to your full potential once your muscles have rested, thus exercising more effectively. We come across this often as clients just want to get through the exercise quickly and not listen to what their body is actually saying.
4. Your daily activities always come first such as washing and dressing. The reason being, imagine you have only one glass of energy to use all day. You don’t want to use the whole glass in one activity such as exercise and have nothing left for the rest of your day. If you have any energy left, then exercise.
5. Don’t give up on exercise. As with anyone, the more you train your body, the more it will adjust and you can get a new baseline on your exercise level. A positive mindset and patience is needed here- you will get there.
A little bit about us. 1st Step Rehab Fitness and Support was founded 2 years ago to help people with long term health conditions through the power of exercise. Having worked in the NHS for 10 years prior to this as a rehabilitation assistant in MK A&E we saw first had how each condition could be improved by movement and exercise in the correct way.
If you would found this article useful and would like to know more please contact us on 07846597460 or check out our website on www.1ststeprfs.com for more information. We are currently running our service fully online for low impact and chair based exercise class and 121 training.
Thank you for reading
Kamaljit Saggu