How to Maximize Walking Endurance

[ActiveMSers]

Renowned MS physical therapist Herb Karpatkin sees MS as a disease of mobility. "Persons with MS don't complain that their myelin is bothering them, but that they are having trouble walking or balancing." In his first article for ActiveMSers, he provides three essential keys for maximizing walking endurance.

http://www.activemsers.org/exercises...endurance.html

[Fit Paul]

I have worked very hard on trying to mitigate the physical damage caused by this damn disease. Walking is my favorite exercise. Now if I could only slow the progression of the cognitive impairment. It is kind of a pain in the butt to be a mindless shell of a person. Sorry for venting but the physical aspect of this disease is obvious to most people, the cognitive........ not so much. Oh well, onward and upward.

[ActiveMSers]

FP, that'll be a future article. Cog issues are unbelievably frustrating. Hang in there. And keep walking.

[teena marie]

This is just fantastic. I have some ideas how to apply some of this to what I'm doing.

As usual, Dave, many thanks,

Teena Marie

[Veronica]

As I’ve posted here before, I have been Herb’s patient for close to 10 years , and he has educated me well on this approach. We’ve used it for increasing my biking, walking, balance exercises, and core work. And a few years back he applied the same principles in helping me strengthen my right hand when I was really struggling to peel an apple. And always with the same outcome…I increased my abilities. This really works, that’s all I can say. Increasing the volume, but doing so with taking breaks. And doing so in these increments helped me perceive that I was going to see results, and therefore I was able to stay committed to the regime. I never dreaded doing the exercises for fear of getting totally exhausted and discouraged. The increments were attainable…(“ just do 5 minutes, take a break….”) and this really helped me from talking myself out of keeping to the routine. So glad that Dave connected with him… closest thing to cloning him!

[AMFADVENTURES]

That's an excellent article, spot on, echos my experience on the bike exactly. I've got to find a way to modify my walking though, hadn't thought of but going to try stretching in between efforts.

Thanks,

[Guitar_grrrl]

This is such a timely post. My last two bike rides really kicked my butt, resulting in pseudo-flares that lasted two days for each of the last two rides. Now, I'll take my rides in smaller "bites", and hopefully, I'll still be able to ride the same distance without having to recover for two days.

[Outdoorslover]

I found another spin on the resting and cooling part of the recommendations. Last summer I was on vacation in Thailand near the ocean where I went for frequent walks along the waterfront. When I could no longer walk well enough to continue I would jump in the water for 10 or 15 minutes to rest and cool down. Once out of the water I was able to continue my hike and just kept on repeating it until I had walked a considerable distance. I surprised myself at how far I was able to go using this technique. Happy Hiking!

[celia]

mobility

Thank you, thank you for having Dr. Karpatkin on this forum. His video was motivating enough for me to start checking out going back to school to study anatomy and physiology.
A nice companion to his advice is the Chi Running/Chi Walking website, plus their books and videos. There are lots of little "form focus" exercises that you can do for intervals to make your movement more efficient and even graceful. Some of it involves mindfulness practice. You can even do some of them indoors if you have enough floor space and the weather is bad. You can go out to a playground and try stuff with a sandpit: soft landings.