Strength training and fibromyalgia
Sep. 12th, 2010 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiapI'll spare you all the story of how I finally got diagnosed, but to make a long story short, last year I learned that I have fibromyalgia. It is only occasionally debilitating (i.e. I cannot do anything but sit in bed and doze), but it can impair performance at work and my general daily functioning. Sometimes, it can just be a minor annoyance. The important thing is, I now know what's been causing me misery for a number of years, and I now have some idea of how to manage it to keep it from affecting my life too often.
In short, I still get flareups, but not as frequently as I used to, and when they start, I can sometimes take measures to make them not as bad as they could be. I already knew that adequate sleep and trying to minimize stress (ha, ha, ha, right...) were helpful. So was getting regular exercise. In fact, the worst flareups of my life happened after a foot injury sidelined me for a few months.
After getting diagnosed, I did find that some of my coping strategies were in fact recommended by experts as ways to deal with fibro. Adequate sleep, dietary changes, stress management, etc. Oh, yeah--regular exercise is also critical, even on days when I feel like I've been beaten with wet ropes.
I remember reading that last bit and nodding in agreement. Yes, if I was feeling creaky and tired, a good, hard, push-until-I-feel-like-puking workout would often make me the right kind of tired instead of fatigued (I may have my terminology mixed up, but in my lexicon, 'tired' is analogous to 'fatigued' the way 'pleasantly melancholy' is analagous to 'depressed'). Also, the kind of soreness I feel in my arms after pulldowns or shoulder presses is very different than the kind of ache I get from a flareup (for some reason, my flareups always start in my arms and work their way in and down), and feels good rather than like the aftermath of falling down the stairs.
Basically, if I catch things early enough with a hard workout and two consecutive good nights' sleep, I can often (not always) short circuit a flareup before it flattens me. And yes, various stretches and yoga exercises also help immensely--used in addition to my usual routine.
(Note: If the flareup has gotten to the point where I'm so fatigued and brain fogged I can barely speak coherently and so achy I can barely walk, sleep will of necessity come before working out, and then I'll lowball my usual workout for the first trip back to the gym.)
So far, so good. Up to that point, the helpful pamphlets were simply confirming stuff I'd mostly figured out on my own.
Here's the odd part, and the reason why I'm going to the trouble of writing this up:
Every source I've found so far has recommended gentle resistance training, and has counseled against over-exertion.
My first thought was that I must be doing things wrong (when in doubt, blame self). But then, I always feel so good after a workout that gets me to the point where I'm sucking wind and trembling with exertion. And those are the workouts that can stop an incipient flareup. A gentle workout or a brisk walk does diddly-squat in that regard.
My next thought was that maybe I didn't really have fibromyalgia. It took longer than I care to admit to come around to thinking that maybe the advice I was receiving was wrong. Or at least, wrong for me.
Lifting heavy makes me feel better. It helps me manage the fibro. Yes, there are times when I do have to scale back because of fatigue, but those times are fairly infrequent. Maybe it's because lifting heavy helps me sleep better. It also helps me manage my stress. Maybe the endorphins released from the exercise help dull the ache and give me a sense of well-being that pushes aside the fog. Maybe I'm just one of those exceptions that proves the rule.
Sometimes, I'm even cynical enough to wonder if the 'gentle' exercise advice is coming from the same place that tells women that they should be using low weights at high reps for that mythical 'toning' effect. All that kind of workout does is make me even more sore because of the lactic acid buildup.
Am I alone in finding that heavy lifting can be beneficial for managing fibro symptoms? Or have other people had similar results? Conversely, has anyone found that an intense resistance training session only makes things worse? Anyone else subject to similar cynicism on the conventional advice?
Given that fibromyalgia is still enough of an unknown that there's even some doubt that it exists, I would have to think that the jury is still out on what makes it better or worse.
Thoughts? Comments? Questions?
In short, I still get flareups, but not as frequently as I used to, and when they start, I can sometimes take measures to make them not as bad as they could be. I already knew that adequate sleep and trying to minimize stress (ha, ha, ha, right...) were helpful. So was getting regular exercise. In fact, the worst flareups of my life happened after a foot injury sidelined me for a few months.
After getting diagnosed, I did find that some of my coping strategies were in fact recommended by experts as ways to deal with fibro. Adequate sleep, dietary changes, stress management, etc. Oh, yeah--regular exercise is also critical, even on days when I feel like I've been beaten with wet ropes.
I remember reading that last bit and nodding in agreement. Yes, if I was feeling creaky and tired, a good, hard, push-until-I-feel-like-puking workout would often make me the right kind of tired instead of fatigued (I may have my terminology mixed up, but in my lexicon, 'tired' is analogous to 'fatigued' the way 'pleasantly melancholy' is analagous to 'depressed'). Also, the kind of soreness I feel in my arms after pulldowns or shoulder presses is very different than the kind of ache I get from a flareup (for some reason, my flareups always start in my arms and work their way in and down), and feels good rather than like the aftermath of falling down the stairs.
Basically, if I catch things early enough with a hard workout and two consecutive good nights' sleep, I can often (not always) short circuit a flareup before it flattens me. And yes, various stretches and yoga exercises also help immensely--used in addition to my usual routine.
(Note: If the flareup has gotten to the point where I'm so fatigued and brain fogged I can barely speak coherently and so achy I can barely walk, sleep will of necessity come before working out, and then I'll lowball my usual workout for the first trip back to the gym.)
So far, so good. Up to that point, the helpful pamphlets were simply confirming stuff I'd mostly figured out on my own.
Here's the odd part, and the reason why I'm going to the trouble of writing this up:
Every source I've found so far has recommended gentle resistance training, and has counseled against over-exertion.
My first thought was that I must be doing things wrong (when in doubt, blame self). But then, I always feel so good after a workout that gets me to the point where I'm sucking wind and trembling with exertion. And those are the workouts that can stop an incipient flareup. A gentle workout or a brisk walk does diddly-squat in that regard.
My next thought was that maybe I didn't really have fibromyalgia. It took longer than I care to admit to come around to thinking that maybe the advice I was receiving was wrong. Or at least, wrong for me.
Lifting heavy makes me feel better. It helps me manage the fibro. Yes, there are times when I do have to scale back because of fatigue, but those times are fairly infrequent. Maybe it's because lifting heavy helps me sleep better. It also helps me manage my stress. Maybe the endorphins released from the exercise help dull the ache and give me a sense of well-being that pushes aside the fog. Maybe I'm just one of those exceptions that proves the rule.
Sometimes, I'm even cynical enough to wonder if the 'gentle' exercise advice is coming from the same place that tells women that they should be using low weights at high reps for that mythical 'toning' effect. All that kind of workout does is make me even more sore because of the lactic acid buildup.
Am I alone in finding that heavy lifting can be beneficial for managing fibro symptoms? Or have other people had similar results? Conversely, has anyone found that an intense resistance training session only makes things worse? Anyone else subject to similar cynicism on the conventional advice?
Given that fibromyalgia is still enough of an unknown that there's even some doubt that it exists, I would have to think that the jury is still out on what makes it better or worse.
Thoughts? Comments? Questions?
no subject
Date: 2010-09-13 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 02:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-08 05:39 am (UTC)So far, I'm finding that strength training really, really helps - although again, it's not at a really heavy weight (yet!). I'm using resistance bands, 2 lb free weights, ankle weights, a balance ball, and two circuit training machines under the guidance of my PT. (Weight on the circuit training machines is at around 25 lbs, so I guess that counts as heavy?)
Case in point: The other day I went to the gym because my gym buddies were going, but my hips were really bothering me. I decided to do some of my lower body strength training exercises without the ankle weights. About 5 minutes in I started feeling more fluid, and ten minutes in the pain was reduced by half. All in all, I ended up doing my lower body strength training exercises and 20 minutes of cardio. By the time I finished, I almost felt like a "normal" person.
I guess so far this corroborates current research, but I definitely intend to gradually increase the weights I'm using. After all, eventually lifting the color-coded weights isn't going to challenge me anymore. What do doctors recommend I do then if I'm not "supposed" to lift the heavy stuff? Or do they just think that I'll never get to that level of fitness?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-08 11:43 am (UTC)What do doctors recommend I do then if I'm not "supposed" to lift the heavy stuff? Or do they just think that I'll never get to that level of fitness?
I think that there's still a lot of 'conventional wisdom' out there that heavy weight training is something that women just don't do. I'm lucky in that I have a fabulous GP whose philosophy is that the patient is the best source of information on what is going on with that patient's body.