Hi, I know exercise is important for all of us and I am curious to hear what you do. Ones not to do? I haven't been doing to much exercise besides work but I know I have to start doing something. There are a lot of positions that I can't tolerate because of either pain or feeling of intense pressure(knees mostly.) I want to fight the stiffness and the weak feeling as well as I can so any good exercise or advise would be great. Thank you all:)

I am a runner. It helps me a lot, but I am not going to say it is for every one. I think you need to find some thing you like, and stick with it.

Recumbent bike. I find its the most effective for me. Im pretty crippled. Moreover other cardio methods are nasty on my achilles tendons.

My problems are all in the back, so have difficulty doing anything with my arms (messes up area between shoulder blades, neck, and lumbar).

For now I've started back with some gentle trail riding again (bike, no hill climbing so far), and walking is great for me, as long as I don't have to carry anything. Would like to try x-country skiing this winter, but don't think that' s in the cards, at least not this season...;)

If my knees were troublesome, it would be trickier I guess. Swimming would be good I imagine. Spinning on a bike maybe, spin classes at a local bike shop, or community centre/gym?


Aqua aerobics is something I'd like try too, but requires more effort (get to the pool!).

/kristine

Swimming!

anymore its mostly walking, ~1 - 1.5 miles in ~20-30 minutes each day. sometimes i can do 2 miles, occasionally maybe as many as 3 miles. but really more than a mile and a half and feet, knees, hamstring tendons, SI complain. but without that walking and my SI and back complain.

when i can, bike riding seems to be a good exercise for me. when my SI is cranky, biking is easier on it than even walking.

i used to love to swim. had a therapeutic pool i could do laps in. but then my SI got to a point where swimming made it worse. maybe if i stayed away from the breast stroke kick. but really the breast stroke was the easiest for my upper body. free style often bothered my rotator cuffs. back stroke was good, but hard to do with others in the pool. i do miss swimming. loved the way it used to make me feel. but SI is flared by swimming now days. others though, like erica, swear by it.

i stretch a lot, throughout the day, but i've torn tendons/ligaments by gently stretching tendons/ligaments that were inflamed. so i have to be really careful with stretching, avoiding it when in a flare. corner stretch is a great one for my upper back / shoulders.

i used to do a yoga class, but kept pulling tendons, so now i kind of mix PT and yoga exercises.

one exercise that i could never ever do was the bridge. always threw my SI out.

moving is so important for my body. but too much is no better than not enough. i have to find the balance.

PS oh, and i almost forgot. i failed water PT. nobody does that! i was sharing the pool with a woman almost twice my age with RA who could barely walk into and out of the pool while i appeared to have no apparent physical difficulty with mobility. and i'm the one who couldn't handle the extra resistance of the water doing the exercises. flared my wrist ligaments, hamstring tendons, SI, and upper back rhomboid area, within 3 sessions. was supposed to have 10 sessions, but quit after those three. and it took me a few months to recover after that. my physiatrist apologized profusely for nudging me to try it. i think the main problem was that the PT wouldn't listen to me when i tried to warn her, as healthy as i look, "no, i'm not just out of shape." as she kept insisting. preconceived notions based on a person's appearance is a dangerous presumption, especially by someone in the medical field.

Pool therapy is the best and there are some good video's for people with A.S. for stretching. They really help if you can't get to a pool. I try to walk on elliptical a little bit each day and a little longer each day if I am up to it. Not too long though. Stretching alway's is the best for me.

Stationary cycle when the weather is bad.

Hello there,

I used to do a lot more exercising.. if the AS allows, the more the better. I used to swim (probably the best exercise), circuit weight train and cross country ski.

Now mostly due to time and energy on NSD... stick to stretching, walking, some tennis and biking (when lived in States... not safe to bike where I live now due to traffic).

Something that gets you in motion the best.. but when I was flared or had too much stiffnes had to hold back.

Take care,

Tim

I can't walk far at all, so I mostly just do stretches to keep up my range of motion - moving my body slowly right up to its limits of comfort in all directions (but not so hard that it keeps on hurting). I used to do some gym stuff - recumbant bike, rowing machine and a kind of elliptical machine (stepper or crosstrainer). Now can't do the crosstrainer because of SI or the rowing because of elbow tendinitis, but the recumbant bike is still fine. I also have a few exercises I do with very light weights (like 1 kg) or a stretch band just to give a bit of resistance. Swimming also good, and if you can find a nice warm pool (our local one isn't quite warm enough for me) then its really relaxing as well. I don't push myself with swimming - just do what is comfortable, including again a full set of range of motion exercises in the water, and lots of floating with very gentle arm and leg movements.

I think the stretches (to get full range of motion in all joints) are probably the most important, and anything else low impact you can do without a lot of pain is also good. I am sure my past years of walking long distances regularly helped save my body in the past though at 55 its suddenly caught up on me.