fitness
Chronic Pain: Move It to Lose It
- Low back pain: Exercise is very beneficial for chronic low back pain. A visit to a physiatrist, a doctor who specializes in physical medicine and rehabilitation, may help direct appropriate medication and therapy management.
What helps: Stretching, water aerobics, leg cycling on a seated (recumbent) bicycle, modified Pilates-based program. Dr. Stanos advises building up weak abdominal and gluteal muscles (your body's "core") with a focus on improving muscles that stabilize the spine.
- Fibromyalgia: This condition, which occurs more often in women than men, causes pain throughout the body, stiffness, muscle sensitivity and fatigue. Although those with fibromyalgia have difficulty staying physically active, exercise helps, often in conjunction with medication.
What helps: Stretching, low-weight strengthening program (think isometrics), aqua exercises, low intensity aerobics, light resistance training. "If someone's got diffuse symptoms like fibromyalgia," Dr. Hoffman says, "walking would be a reasonable activity."
- Arthritis: Moving your joints keeps them flexible and reduces the classic joint stiffness of arthritis. It's also important to strengthen the muscles that surround and support joints.
What helps: Water exercise, walking, daily gentle stretching for range-of-motion and flexibility, tai chi, yoga, strengthening with and without moving joints, cycling. If joints in the lower body are especially painful, Dr. Hoffman suggests using skiing, rowing or elliptical machines, and swimming.
- Neck and shoulder pain: Problems caused by pore posture affect women more often than men, Dr. Stanos says. "All day long, they're in the wrong postures and then they exercise and their muscles aren't ready or able to tolerate that."
