Weight training with CFS ?
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WoolPippi
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powerlifting = yes.
cardio = NO. NOPE. get out of here! but in a casual stroll. DON'T RUN!
Protein is hard to digest, both by your gut and your cells. One needs increased stomach acid (take HCL, vinegar or lemon juice with your food) and a non-leaky gut etc. The other needs working mitochondria. Since March I can take mB12 and folate etc. on a daily basis that it's only since that time that I can do the gym work. And only the muscle building exercises, not the cardio.
I go for being upright most of the day, only taking two one hour lie downs per day. Taking a shower, cooking food and since Sept. 1st I've started working on my art again. I can leave the house every day. I can walk 3 hours around the city or an event at least once a week. I recover within a day from anything.
I don't know if I'm fit. I'm stable, that I know.
I tried cardio the past few weeks. Just 10 minutes walking before power training and 10 minutes afterwards. I tumbled right back to unstable and having to spend days indoors, hours on bed. Cardio does something to mess up my system.
the no-pain is really a stroke of luck, isn't it? Pain would have added so much more stress... I really feel for the people here who have pain.
Hi. I'm at 70-80% health at the moment and have started power training. The one with weights. The anaerobic exercise.
It's going really well! My muscle strength is building.
You can surely do this, I feel. But only once a week. It will take healthy people 48 hours to recuperate from power lifting. People like us may need a week.
I do "Fit20" which is only anaerobic. In 2 minutes I deplete one muscle group to the point of (form) failure. The motion is very precise and very slow. You're not supposed to sweat, you can do it in your regular clothes and are in and out the door in 20 minutes. The machines are way more precise than regular gym machines. I get a personal trainer to monitor my form. It's expensive.
STAY AWAY FROM SWEATING EXERCISES. No biking, running, rowing, stairs running. This is the other version of exercising, the aerobic version. Cardio. It's bad for you.
Has to do with getting oxygen to your muscles and utilizing this for energy. I don't know why but I wish I had read Alex3619 post #3 a few weeks ago because I learned this the hard way: cardio is not good for people with ME.
Is it because our low blood pressure? Are we messing up the ATP-cycle in our mitochondria for days? I don't know. I started a bit of cardio next to the fit20 and it messed me up. Both physical and mental. Didn't recover for days.
So: power lifting yes, especially in carefully controlled movements such as fit20. Slow precise movements are even more important in the beginning as your muscle coordination is gone. I've been in bed for 6 years and fit20 was a good start for me. Going to a gym and just starting on machines would have been bad. I'm now doing fit20 once a week and going to a regular gym also once a week because I want to do more. It's a second strength exercise, not sure if it's wise, but it's a trial. But I'm no longer doing the warming up and cooling down as vigorously as I did the last few weeks because that was cardio and it was bad.
cardio = NO. NOPE. get out of here! but in a casual stroll.
cardio = NO. NOPE. get out of here! but in a casual stroll. DON'T RUN!
no but keep in mind you will need to increase protein intake to build and keep your muscles.
Protein is hard to digest, both by your gut and your cells. One needs increased stomach acid (take HCL, vinegar or lemon juice with your food) and a non-leaky gut etc. The other needs working mitochondria. Since March I can take mB12 and folate etc. on a daily basis that it's only since that time that I can do the gym work. And only the muscle building exercises, not the cardio.
I am ignoring fitness as a concept at the moment. I have developed a lot of power in my muscles the past few months, with strength exercises, but if I walk 10 minutes on the treadmill, building up a mild sweat, I'm out of commission for 4 days.
I go for being upright most of the day, only taking two one hour lie downs per day. Taking a shower, cooking food and since Sept. 1st I've started working on my art again. I can leave the house every day. I can walk 3 hours around the city or an event at least once a week. I recover within a day from anything.
I don't know if I'm fit. I'm stable, that I know.
I tried cardio the past few weeks. Just 10 minutes walking before power training and 10 minutes afterwards. I tumbled right back to unstable and having to spend days indoors, hours on bed. Cardio does something to mess up my system.
Lucky me, also no pain. Also a woman.
the no-pain is really a stroke of luck, isn't it? Pain would have added so much more stress... I really feel for the people here who have pain.
Hi. I'm at 70-80% health at the moment and have started power training. The one with weights. The anaerobic exercise.
It's going really well! My muscle strength is building.
You can surely do this, I feel. But only once a week. It will take healthy people 48 hours to recuperate from power lifting. People like us may need a week.
I do "Fit20" which is only anaerobic. In 2 minutes I deplete one muscle group to the point of (form) failure. The motion is very precise and very slow. You're not supposed to sweat, you can do it in your regular clothes and are in and out the door in 20 minutes. The machines are way more precise than regular gym machines. I get a personal trainer to monitor my form. It's expensive.
STAY AWAY FROM SWEATING EXERCISES. No biking, running, rowing, stairs running. This is the other version of exercising, the aerobic version. Cardio. It's bad for you.
Has to do with getting oxygen to your muscles and utilizing this for energy. I don't know why but I wish I had read Alex3619 post #3 a few weeks ago because I learned this the hard way: cardio is not good for people with ME.
Is it because our low blood pressure? Are we messing up the ATP-cycle in our mitochondria for days? I don't know. I started a bit of cardio next to the fit20 and it messed me up. Both physical and mental. Didn't recover for days.
So: power lifting yes, especially in carefully controlled movements such as fit20. Slow precise movements are even more important in the beginning as your muscle coordination is gone. I've been in bed for 6 years and fit20 was a good start for me. Going to a gym and just starting on machines would have been bad. I'm now doing fit20 once a week and going to a regular gym also once a week because I want to do more. It's a second strength exercise, not sure if it's wise, but it's a trial. But I'm no longer doing the warming up and cooling down as vigorously as I did the last few weeks because that was cardio and it was bad.
cardio = NO. NOPE. get out of here! but in a casual stroll.
WoolPippi
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must add I'm 45 yo and have just started taking testosterone (in the form of DHEA) because it was too low. Also on Progesteron and Cortisol. Still many symptoms of too low blood pressure.
also want to explain that Fit20 is still different from regular weight training. There are no sets or reps, just work that one motion -say chest press- in 10 slow counts, in an even movement. Then move it it the other way, in 10 slow counts. The machines seem like regular machines but are smooth moving and insure the same resistance every inch of the motion and every motion alike. Your heart rate shouldn't rise much.
The idea is you work into absolute (form) failure for chest press in 2 minutes. The same for leg press etc. The weight gets adjusted each week to reach that 2 minute goal. For leg press I'm at 75 kilos, for stomach muscle at 7,5 (for example). Posture and strength and coordination during the day are so much better! I use my muscles to sit or stand, I no longer slouch of my bones.
My BP shortly after these exercises is 107 over 95
which is higher than my normal BP of 95/63 (too low, not healthy)
In cardio I got to 130 easily and a few flukes of 150
I have a very good heart and only a few breaths will bring me back to 110. Still I'll be avoiding this, even though I love these kind of sports.
Dechi
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@WoolPippi Here is what's working for me so far. (Love your avatar by the way!). After doing very little since I was home sick, about 1 1/2 year ago, I started trying my bike at the end of june. I hadn't crashed since the end of may, and still haven't. I attribute it to the meds I am taking (nimotop) since I am doing relatively more and sleeping less because of a lot of stress, which should have triggered a lot of crashes !
I use a heart rate monitor and I make sure to stay beneath my anaerobic threshold. I try to keep my heartbeat below 120. I bike for about 50 minutes, at about 17km/h (i started at 12km/h and improved over 2 months) and my average heartbeat is about 110-115 for the whole ride. Biking works for me because I am sitting. Just standing near my bike, my heart goes up to 115 !
At the gym, I have to be more careful, because I know I had bad crashes from it. I have orthostatic hypotension, so working hard while standing is not very good for me. I started a new routine when I when back about 10 days ago. I do 2 series of 6 (8 max) reps for each group muscles and I target 2 group muscles + abs every session. After 1 serie, I wait until my hear rate goes down to 60 (my resting heart rate is 46 on good days). It might take 1-2 minutes. Then I do the second serie of 6. This whole thing takes me about 40 minutes, but I am only exercising for about 4 minutes, the rest is rest. I do that about 4-5 times a week, which means 14-20 minutes of exercise per week. Before I stopped I was doing 7 minutes total per week and it was too much. i am still testing my limits, this new routine might be too much. One thing is for sure, I can't get to the point of muscle failure, or I would faint or feel very bad and probably crash. I wish I could because it really gives the best results.
I use a heart rate monitor and I make sure to stay beneath my anaerobic threshold. I try to keep my heartbeat below 120. I bike for about 50 minutes, at about 17km/h (i started at 12km/h and improved over 2 months) and my average heartbeat is about 110-115 for the whole ride. Biking works for me because I am sitting. Just standing near my bike, my heart goes up to 115 !
At the gym, I have to be more careful, because I know I had bad crashes from it. I have orthostatic hypotension, so working hard while standing is not very good for me. I started a new routine when I when back about 10 days ago. I do 2 series of 6 (8 max) reps for each group muscles and I target 2 group muscles + abs every session. After 1 serie, I wait until my hear rate goes down to 60 (my resting heart rate is 46 on good days). It might take 1-2 minutes. Then I do the second serie of 6. This whole thing takes me about 40 minutes, but I am only exercising for about 4 minutes, the rest is rest. I do that about 4-5 times a week, which means 14-20 minutes of exercise per week. Before I stopped I was doing 7 minutes total per week and it was too much. i am still testing my limits, this new routine might be too much. One thing is for sure, I can't get to the point of muscle failure, or I would faint or feel very bad and probably crash. I wish I could because it really gives the best results.
cman89
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I take a cocktail of b vitamins, so energy and mental function is pretty decent, but I feel muscularly weak and I havent been able to boost strength for a while.
cman89
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Wow. I have never had that low of a BP before. Honestly, my issues are mostly based with lack of strength and anabolic ability. I have ok endurance and mental functioning is dandy. Again, i'm not really a true ME patient, just a dude with mystery health issues.
cman89
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I know you are on a medication, but have you tried extra salt and vagus nerve stimulation efforts? I know some people have trouble with HR variability, and the Vagus stim can help with that, plus it gives me a bit of a mental boost.
cman89
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I have a few methods I personally use. I occasionally meditate alternating deep breathing with extended vibrational "Ohm" chanting. The ohm chanting really helps with headache if that has come on, and the deep breathing acts as a calming agent. Compounds like caffeine and nicotine can help via acetylcholine release, but one must be careful with these compounds, for obvious reasons. The method I use most on a current basis is ear clip attatched to a TENS unit. I am sure there are better ones out there, but I use a healthmate forever unit that looks like a TV Remote. I originally used it for muscle stim but I bought an ear clip that I put on my lobe and pinna. If you Google it you can find good info.
cman89
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Sorry, I put it on the Tragus of the ear, which is part of the Pinna....
cman89
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Sorry about that. Here is a link to the company's website: http://www.healthmateforever.com/collections/healthmateforever-devices
I have the YK15AB "remote control" looking device
panckage
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I have a question about this. Strength training works well for my upper body and core. I mean it takes me 2-4hr to do what an ordinary person can do in 30min but I suffer no ill effects. I can work these muscles to failure and regularly (but slowly) gain strength
OTOH I find exercises that recruit the big muscles (eg. Squat, deadlift) seem to take too much energy. If I do them I only seem to be able to handle them with light weight. I don't think I am able to do these to failure....
Can you do the big muscle exercises like squats and deadlifts? Or do you have a problem with them too?
Dechi
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@panckage I never work any muscle to failure, because unfortunately I have a lousy lactic acid buil-up 24/7, so after about 6-8 reps, I am starting to feel bad.
I do squats and deadlifts with reasonable weight for 6-8 reps, then rest until my heart rate goes back to just a little bit above my resting heart rate, then I do my second serie (I do 2 series of 6-8 reps for each muscle group, in 3 different days, 2 on / 1 off). It takes me about 40 minutes to complete my 8-10 series of 6 reps, which amounts to about 4 minutes of exercise for 35-40 minutes of rest. But I am still getting results, so you should try your legs, but very slowly and reasonably.
cman89
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Keep in mind also that larger muscle groups recruit much more neuromuscular activation than smaller muscle groups, along with requiring more energy, some lifts, like squats , can also affect your blood flow as well, so that may cause issues. In normal bodybuilding curcumstances, Squats and deadlifts should be a huge part of a regimen, but thats assuming everything is responding as it should. Obviously with us, its not...
WoolPippi
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I do not yet have the coordination to do these.
Wonko
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I used to do strength training 5-10 years ago. I've had M.E. for about 27 years. I'd be very careful if i was considering doing it now.
Things I learnt.
Be very careful.
Don't allow lifting to interfere, even indirectly, with anything else - literally everything else is more important, even vital when you have M.E. (as anything which wasn't probably got abandoned years ago). Just little things like, I've trained, I've done well, I'm too knackered to cook, I'll order food in - bad...means you've displaced a healthy activity with one that's not, at least at this time, for someone with M.E.
Believe me, it sneaks up on you, training feels good, at least at the time, the pain is a better pain than I felt all the time, different is better right? If you've set a goal and achieved it, plus you have different pain from normal, and lots of handy endorphins to make you feel good, that's got to be better than real life where you're stuck, in pain, unable to achieve virtually anything and certainly not anything you actually want to achieve, just stuff you have to, if you're lucky. Got to be a good thing, right? So you'll make excuses for the impact it has on other things, that you're too weak to sit down (as opposed to fall into a chair), that this will help - it may well do, it did for me, but everything else goes by degree, until you can lift more than you thought possible, but you don't have the energy to do anything else, bathe, eat, answer the phone etc.
Over the 3 years I was lifting I spent the first 6 months not able to train with more than an empty bar, I didn't start with an empty bar but eventually the realisation hits, after the 2nd or 3rd serious crash, that maybe, just maybe, using slightly less weight than seems so easy it's pointless, would be a good idea. In the next 6 months on the big 3 lifts I slowly moved up to a little under half body weight without significant issues apart from that my rest periods (between lifts) was several times longer than they would be for a pwME. In the next year I moved up to body weight on most lifts - this was hard, I'd have months where I got weaker with every session, everything else in my life was displaced by one 2 hour lifting session a week, I wasn't eating or at least not eating anything that could be classified as even vaguely healthy, if it took longer than 10 minutes to make it didn't happen, I wasn't going out, I wasn't talking to anyone or answering even official letters. Then I started having accidents, fortunately I have a safety cage which saved my bacon a few times and definitely stopped my cat from being a red smear on the floor on one occasion. I did lifts without warming up fully (the warm ups for higher weight lifts start to become aerobic exercise after a certain point), or got distracted, losing tension at the top of a 160kg deadlift is no joke, or so my lower back told me for a few months.
Think you'd never take it that far? Neither did I.
The downside (if the above doesn't apply to you - yet), over the 3 years my walking range gradually reduced. When I started, at my own pace, I could walk about 4 miles (took me all day but I could do it, just not on consecutive days). Training initially made this easier and faster, as you might expect, but more muscle means more energy burnt to achieve the same thing, if you're energy is fixed, and being burnt faster than you're used to it's perfectly possible to simply run out, 100m from home, and spend the next 3 hours trying to get the rest of the way - not fun. Muscle cells come in 2 basic flavours, those that do the strength thing and those that do the endurance thing, if you train them for strength then endurance suffers, at least I suspect this is why my walking range dropped from 4 miles unsupported to around 20m unsupported (about 100m supported) - yep, I now use crutches to go anywhere, and not because of the accident with my back. Of course, having M.E. I can't do the aerobic type exercises required to train the muscle cells back to endurance mode, so I can't fix it.
So...what am I saying?
Weight training, I'd suggest not doing body building type sets as these are aerobic, instead do low reps, low numbers of sets, at least 1 graduation down from what you can comfortably complete a set at. I'd also suggest that unless you have a specific need for a particular muscle then don't train it specifically, so no curls! As such I'd suggest there is no real point in doing exercises which don't train the major muscles all at once - instead do exercises such as squats, some form of press, and of course picking the bar up off the floor.
You can probably combine the benefits of most of these in simply placing an empty bar on the floor, and then lifting it above your head, and repeat. Bear in mind lifting weights above your head without a cage is iffy safety wise, and can (did to me) cause a crash on it's own. Only if you need to progress beyond this is there probably a point in splitting the motion up into separate exercises, or modifying the action into rows or something else.
Almost all of the benefits of training for me came in the early stages, before I started using enough weight to built muscle, by nervous system adaptation to allow it to use what muscle I had more effectively. Only after this point would you need to build more muscle to increase strength and IMO going beyond this is not necessary for most people, whether they have M.E. or not - very few lions to wrestle out there these days.
It's weightlifting, lift a weight, put it down, don't get hurt, job done - do something else that actually contributes to your survival.
FYI - I'm probably going into a crash right now, I'm on morphine to help with pain, my brains fried, my body isn't working very well and my eyes, argh, my eyes - I'm also aspi, so if the above makes sense, all good, if it's total gibberish or if I've offended anyone, been insensitive or just been too full of **** then I apologise - just tryign to help.
Things I learnt.
Be very careful.
Don't allow lifting to interfere, even indirectly, with anything else - literally everything else is more important, even vital when you have M.E. (as anything which wasn't probably got abandoned years ago). Just little things like, I've trained, I've done well, I'm too knackered to cook, I'll order food in - bad...means you've displaced a healthy activity with one that's not, at least at this time, for someone with M.E.
Believe me, it sneaks up on you, training feels good, at least at the time, the pain is a better pain than I felt all the time, different is better right? If you've set a goal and achieved it, plus you have different pain from normal, and lots of handy endorphins to make you feel good, that's got to be better than real life where you're stuck, in pain, unable to achieve virtually anything and certainly not anything you actually want to achieve, just stuff you have to, if you're lucky. Got to be a good thing, right? So you'll make excuses for the impact it has on other things, that you're too weak to sit down (as opposed to fall into a chair), that this will help - it may well do, it did for me, but everything else goes by degree, until you can lift more than you thought possible, but you don't have the energy to do anything else, bathe, eat, answer the phone etc.
Over the 3 years I was lifting I spent the first 6 months not able to train with more than an empty bar, I didn't start with an empty bar but eventually the realisation hits, after the 2nd or 3rd serious crash, that maybe, just maybe, using slightly less weight than seems so easy it's pointless, would be a good idea. In the next 6 months on the big 3 lifts I slowly moved up to a little under half body weight without significant issues apart from that my rest periods (between lifts) was several times longer than they would be for a pwME. In the next year I moved up to body weight on most lifts - this was hard, I'd have months where I got weaker with every session, everything else in my life was displaced by one 2 hour lifting session a week, I wasn't eating or at least not eating anything that could be classified as even vaguely healthy, if it took longer than 10 minutes to make it didn't happen, I wasn't going out, I wasn't talking to anyone or answering even official letters. Then I started having accidents, fortunately I have a safety cage which saved my bacon a few times and definitely stopped my cat from being a red smear on the floor on one occasion. I did lifts without warming up fully (the warm ups for higher weight lifts start to become aerobic exercise after a certain point), or got distracted, losing tension at the top of a 160kg deadlift is no joke, or so my lower back told me for a few months.
Think you'd never take it that far? Neither did I.
The downside (if the above doesn't apply to you - yet), over the 3 years my walking range gradually reduced. When I started, at my own pace, I could walk about 4 miles (took me all day but I could do it, just not on consecutive days). Training initially made this easier and faster, as you might expect, but more muscle means more energy burnt to achieve the same thing, if you're energy is fixed, and being burnt faster than you're used to it's perfectly possible to simply run out, 100m from home, and spend the next 3 hours trying to get the rest of the way - not fun. Muscle cells come in 2 basic flavours, those that do the strength thing and those that do the endurance thing, if you train them for strength then endurance suffers, at least I suspect this is why my walking range dropped from 4 miles unsupported to around 20m unsupported (about 100m supported) - yep, I now use crutches to go anywhere, and not because of the accident with my back. Of course, having M.E. I can't do the aerobic type exercises required to train the muscle cells back to endurance mode, so I can't fix it.
So...what am I saying?
Weight training, I'd suggest not doing body building type sets as these are aerobic, instead do low reps, low numbers of sets, at least 1 graduation down from what you can comfortably complete a set at. I'd also suggest that unless you have a specific need for a particular muscle then don't train it specifically, so no curls! As such I'd suggest there is no real point in doing exercises which don't train the major muscles all at once - instead do exercises such as squats, some form of press, and of course picking the bar up off the floor.
You can probably combine the benefits of most of these in simply placing an empty bar on the floor, and then lifting it above your head, and repeat. Bear in mind lifting weights above your head without a cage is iffy safety wise, and can (did to me) cause a crash on it's own. Only if you need to progress beyond this is there probably a point in splitting the motion up into separate exercises, or modifying the action into rows or something else.
Almost all of the benefits of training for me came in the early stages, before I started using enough weight to built muscle, by nervous system adaptation to allow it to use what muscle I had more effectively. Only after this point would you need to build more muscle to increase strength and IMO going beyond this is not necessary for most people, whether they have M.E. or not - very few lions to wrestle out there these days.
It's weightlifting, lift a weight, put it down, don't get hurt, job done - do something else that actually contributes to your survival.
FYI - I'm probably going into a crash right now, I'm on morphine to help with pain, my brains fried, my body isn't working very well and my eyes, argh, my eyes - I'm also aspi, so if the above makes sense, all good, if it's total gibberish or if I've offended anyone, been insensitive or just been too full of **** then I apologise - just tryign to help.
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Johnskip
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what are the supplements?
Dechi
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I am quoting myself just to prove how fast it can change. I wrote this about 3 months ago. Those 4 minutes of exercise within 45 minutes are now impossible to do for me. I just do 1 muscle group, at three different periods during the day, for a total of 45 seconds per day. I do that about 2-3 times a week, so it's a total of a little over 2 minutes of exercise per week.
I never, ever feel good when I lift. I never had since I got sick. I feel tingly all over my body adter lifting, for a few seconds. Then it fades and I feel weak and know I would faint if I kept going.
You can't call that training anymore, but it's allowing me to keep a certain muscle mass which will help me when I feel weak.