Exercise and increasing your daily capacity/energy

This is particularly for those of you who are struggling with energy limiting disorders that generally are helped by exercise.

An example would be uncontrolled Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. With POTs the uncontrolled heart rate spikes and dysautonomia means that a person’s body is working twice as hard just to exist.

These are two heart rate graphs of a client with uncontrolled POTs one shows a POTs attack while sleeping, the other a day at university. No exercise was done the heart rate spikes were due to sitting up.

If your body is working as hard just to exist as someone’s body would do when undertaking a busy athletic day add in anything on top and it is simply exhausting.

The good news is a combination of strength training and low heart rate cardio can reduce symptoms to the point where the body works close to a normal person. An increase in muscle strength and efficiency helps blood flow work more effectively particularly when pooling. Cardio conditioning increases the stroke volume of the heart. This in turn reduces attacks helps the heart regulate when tachycardic moments hit.

Overall exercise has been found to expand blood volume and plasma volume and increase cardiac muscle mass and heart size. These in turn have been associated huge with improvement in symptoms.

Above is after 6 months of training, you will notice the heart rate is lower here during exercise than it previously was just during sitting. It is also lower and more uniform across the entire day.

More importantly they now are able to live a life close to the one they want. They make plans without worrying about crashes and spend a day busy yet still have a little energy left over.

Although it’s a different (often related) condition hypermobility spectrum disorders can also have a similar impact of daily energy.

Here the lack of functioning connective tissue leads to a general instability within the body. Connective tissue is not limited to the joints but throughout the entire body. When it doesn’t function joints are loose and the entire body lacks structure.

Again this means simply existing is exhausting. However strength training and muscle development can help counter balance the lack of structure.

In both situations the end result is an increased energy capacity and an ability to undertake a normal day/life without utter exhaustion.

You can’t cure underlying health conditions, but with the right help there is a strong chance that you can control them. A regular routine of movement designed to be suitable for your body might allow you to regain your life.

If you would like a female personal trainer, yoga teacher or Pilates instructor in Alnwick Northumberland who is well versed in different types of training including working with health issues please get in touch.