UPFRONT | Roundup FITNESS Customized resistance exercise a factor for success with fibromyalgia Fibromyalgia and resistance exer-cise have often been considered an impossible combination. But with proper support and individually adjusted exercises, female patients achieved considerable health im-provements, according to research from Sahlgrenska Academy. “If the goal for these women is to improve their strength, then they shouldn’t be afraid to exer-cise, but they need to exercise the right way. It has long been said that they will only experience more pain as a result of resistance exercise, that it doesn’t work. But in fact, it does,” says Anette Larsson, whose dissertation was in physical thera-py and who is an active physical therapist at Närhälsan in Herrljunga. As part of her dissertation, she studied 130 women aged between 20-65 years with fibromyalgia, a disease in which nine of ten cases are women. It is characterized by widespread muscle pain and in-creased pain sensitivity, often combined with fatigue, reduced physical capacity and limitation of activities in daily life. About half of the women in the study (67) were selected at ran-dom to undergo a program of person-centered, progressive re-sistance exercise led by a physical therapist. The other 63 women comprised the control group and underwent a more traditional ther-apy program with relaxation exer-cises. The training and exercises lasted for fifteen weeks and were held twice a week. “The women who did resistance exercise began at very light weights, which were determined individually for each participant because they have varying levels of strength. We began at 40 per cent of the max and then remained that level for three to four weeks before increasing to 60 per cent,” Larsson says. More than six of 10 women were able to reach a level of exercise at 80 per cent of their maximum strength. One of the 10 was at 60 per cent; the others were below that figure. Five individuals chose to stop the training due to in-creased pain. “On a group level ... the women felt better, gained muscle strength, had less pain, better pain toler-ance, better health-related quality of life and less limitation of activi-ties. Some of the women did not manage the exercise and became worse, which is also an important,” Larsson says. In the control group, the im-provements were not as signifi-cant, but even there, hand and arm strength improved. The findings for the women in the resistance exer-cise group are affected by several factors, including the degree of pain and fear of movement before and during the exercise period. –Margareta Gustafsson Kubista, University of Gothenburg BackSwing ‘18 Thursday, September 13, 2018 Bayview Golf and Country Club, Thornhill, Ontario cmcc.ca/Backswing Featuring a 2 hour CE Lecture Early Bird registration now open through to August 17, 2018. Register at www.cmcc.ca/backswing For more information contact Special Events at 416-482-2340 ext 200 or [email protected] Gold Sponsor Silver Sponsors Media Sponsor CMCC 14 th annual golf tournament Allan M. Freedman Barrister & Solicitor www.canadianchiropractor.ca CC_CMCCBackswing_JulyAug18_CSA.indd 1 July/August 2018 Canadian Chiropractor 9 2018-06-14 10:05 AM
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