Tag: Hypermobility

Posted on

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.

Posted on

New year revolution

Yes I said revolution because resolutions always seem to be about giving up something. I revolt against that and am commenting to learning something.

In particular it’s olympic lifting. Which will be the main focus of my training for the next year. I will still use dumbbells for joint stability as I’m a bendy stretchy person but more as an accessory and a lil wod here and there to stop my heart exploding.

I have an amazing coach who I will see once a month and he can tell me where I’m going wrong and then I follow the program in between.

Today was day 3 of my year of olympic lifting, at this stage we are keeping it pretty light while I think about technique.

Today I particularly was aware in snatch balance of my tendency to land more on toes than heels which I’m working on. Snatch pull I find particularly useful as I really get the feeling of it being close to my belly.

I closed up the session with some split squats and heavy step ups then a short street parking work out. All in all body was thoroughly tickled

Interestingly my heart rate had a decent boomf from the olympic lifting

Posted on

Last picked for every team


Some people excel at sport and athleticism from an early age, it is woven into their DNA. They take to any physical activity they try with ease and grace. The kind of people who won every race at sports day and captained every team. Then there’s those like me who were quite literally picked last for every team in PE, I swear to god if my classmates could have chosen the school bench over me they would. To be fair it would have probably done a better job at the time.

I was skinny, knock kneed, had an undiagnosed hypermobility spectrum disorder and the serious lack of muscle tone that goes with it. As is often the case when we are awful at something I avoided it like the plague, I don’t know if things have changed but in my day PE teachers had no interest in those without natural athleticism never mind the reasons why.

To be entirely honest my experiences at school with regard to fitness were not just negative they were actually traumatic. I was openly bullied for my lack of physicality and knock knees and viciously name called. I’m not sure though out of the laughter or the pity clap I would sometimes get coming in dead last for something…again which one was worse. I still won’t even so much as take part in a 5k race in public as a result, the idea of any type of competition fills me with horror to the point where I actually feel physically sick.

Why am I telling you this? It’s not for pity or sympathy, I am honestly quite fine. The past is the past. I want you to read this if you like me had no natural ability and let you know that it does not and never did exclude you from looking after yourself physically. No matter how rubbish you were at PE you can still benefit from various forms of movement. Heck you might even enjoy it. I certainly do, in fact I can’t imagine a life where I don’t get up and exercise pretty much every day. I am so grateful that I discovered first yoga and Pilates in my 20s which I found I actually quite naturally built for and being the antithesis of competitive sports allowed me to tune in with my body and learn to love moving it. It was this love of movement I took into CrossFit and strength training, the difference being in that situation I was pretty rubbish to begin with. However many years later of keeping at it I am actually

pretty strong and certainly fit.

That for me is the important aspect, being fit and healthy, being strong enough to squat down to the ground with a heavy back pack and stand back up, being able to walk briskly up hills without losing my breath, being limber enough to fold into my legs with no discomfort, being able to lift heavy suitcases over head for other passengers on trains. These are the things that matter to me. That and the sheer love of movement, oh heavens it is simply glorious to just move, there is a delight in using your body that is with language almost inexpressible. As though different movements all have their own flavor and to engage in more than one is like a banquet for the body. Plus as a result I honestly feel better at nearly 50 than I did my entire adult life.

Don’t let a perceived idea of not being athletic dictate to you that exercise isn’t for you, it is for everyone from those like my husband who are naturally talented in a particular field (running) and thrive in competition to those like myself who myself who had to work at it. In fact I think those of us who are not naturals potentially benefit even more as there are often underlying conditions that make us that way which are improved by movement.

Exercise is for all of us and is certainly one of the keys to health and longevity.

If you would like to work with a personal trainer in a quiet setting in Alnwick Northumberland get in touch!