Training With MS or Chronic Fatigue
This article was written by Paul Burke.
A common misconception with MS and CFS is that if you feel tired, you should take a nap—do what your body is telling you to do. I liken this to a person who unknowingly is addicted to a food because they have become allergic to it. In other words, in these two cases, you cannot listen to what your body tells you to do. If you do, you will continue to get worse.
Since the mitochondria in patients with MS and CFS is in poor biological condition, a smart, well-paced anaerobic (uses ATP as fuel) training routine is in order.
Training For ATP Power
First, choose one or two of your most leverage advantaged multi-joint exercises to do for each body-group. For instance, when I say leverage advantaged, if you are tall and have long arms and a flat rib-cage, flat barbell bench presses aren’t the best choice for you. More than likely, declines (because they shorten the up and down stroke) with a bar or with dumbbells will be a better choice.
The same can be said for the upper thigh. If you have small knees, long legs and a long torso, squats are not going to be your best choice. You may find that if you wear two weight training belts it will stop your upper body from collapsing before leg fatigue. However, your small knees and long thighs will still limit your ability to increase weight and reps, thereby limiting the mission—increasing your ATP Threshold. Don’t think of yourself as Arnold because you are not, you are someone that more than likely has many structural flaws and you must learn which exercises you are good at performing and stick with them so that you can increase weight and reps each month.
Once you are finding yourself comfortable with an exercise, never change it! Did Monet change his style once he found it? Of course not! Once you find your most advantageous exercises, stick with them with the idea that they will be the fundamental building blocks to your strength gains and changes in your ATP threshold. Mitochondria is your money in the cellular bank.
Frequency Myths—Listening To Your Body!
Secondly, forget about a “week” as far as how many times you train with weights. This is the time to listen to your body. Let us say you find two isolating exercises for chest and two for triceps: These exercises allow you to take advantage of what your muscular-skeletal system has given you. Let us say that you complete six total sets of each body part—3 sets of each exercise: Make note of the weight and rep count, but be sure your form is perfect. Now, take the next few days off from training with weights until all soreness is gone. People with any type of nerve damage, or mitochondria starvation, should wait until there is no soreness anywhere on the body before training with weights again.
During your days off from lifting weights however it is very advantageous to swim for 30 minutes for one day and walk a mile for another (if you can)—take the third off. On the fifth day, you will probably be ready to do two other body parts with weights, keeping track of leverage advantages in exercises, rep counts and weight used.
Continue this type of training and begin to increase reps and weight at the same time on any given “right-for-you” exercise; if you don’t feel as though you can do both try just increasing reps at first.
The Many Benefits
Keeping this pace, you will find that this type of routine will help you in many ways.
- You will increase in strength and thereby regain some ambulation if not all; and it will help with stability doing all tasks.
- You will find that by swimming and/or walking, you will help rejuvenate the neuromuscular system. It is no mystery why humans are locomotive mammals. The more you can either locomote (walking), or in the pool, the more your nervous system will strengthen. I liken this to the REM stage of sleep. As the eyes move back and forth, the entire body rejuvenates—from the immune system to the single cells in your baby toe. Locomotion and swimming are great for this.
- As you gain strength and hold your exercise form steady, increase your weights and reps and begin to open up that ATP threshold and allow this magic to be worked on the mitochondria.
- With a fluent routine such as this, there will be a snow-ball effect: you must start off slow and be careful not to over-train however once you understand what is happening, that body will begin to recover rapidly.
- Your blood-glucose levels will stay in a good place—low—while you enjoy this type of routine.
- Since you will be swimming and walking (if you can), your cardiovascular system will be getting its praise and presents as well.
- Hopefully, this routine will bring you to Yoga, as a way of relaxing your busy (often fearful mind) and bring you peace, good breathing techniques and more awareness of your body’s needs and dislikes.
- This then will bring you to ask about diet and I will use my next column for that.
Until then, good luck and never give up—NEVER!
Paul Burke possesses a Master’s Degree in Integrated Studies from Cambridge College, Cambridge, Massachusetts and is a Ph.d Candidate at the Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. Paul has been a champion bodybuilder; champion arm-wrestler; trainer for Bill Koch and his Matador2 and America’s Cup Teams. He has been in the health and fitness field for over thirty years and is the Over 40 Fitness Editor for Exercise for Men Only, Men’s Exercise, and Natural Bodybuilding. Paul’s latest book, Burke’s Law: A New Fitness Paradigm for The Mature Male will be released in May 2005.
You can reach Paul by email at PBPTB@aol.com or on the web www.paul-burke.com.
Editor’s Note: To read more about Paul Burke M.Ed., order Fit Over 40: Role Models For Excellence At Any Age today!
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