So I have been meaning to write about this for a while now. Ever since I started at the adult CF clinic about 2 years ago, they told me part of their routine was meeting with a PT once a year. They didn't want to bombard me at first with all of their policies if it wasn't necessary and if I didn't have days off. But I finally went to meet with the PT (he specializes in CF care) at the hospital where my clinic is back in February or March I want to say. Long story short, I didn't realize how weak some of my muscle groups are. Shoulders and hips for one. At that point I hadn't been to the gym in a few years and rarely did any walking. When I had my old job…I at least walked around the store and NEVER sat down. Moved things around the store, so at least that was some form of exercise. My job now, I pretty much sit down all day. So I am going to just outline what these visits with the PT have entailed one by one. Because since that initial visit, I have been back to see him twice more. Insurance pays for it, so why not. And with my new gym membership, I really would like to have more exercises to do in my arsenal while I'm at the gym.
Visit one: I can't remember if I blogged about this or not, so I will just briefly go over what we did to the best of my memory. We talked for a while about how much I exercise, how healthy I am CF-wise, and my daily routine of CF care. He did some strength tests…you know the kind where you push against his arm and you have to keep it stable. Or raising my arms above my head. Different stuff. I then did a treadmill walking/jogging test. In addition to having weak shoulders and hips, we realized I have pretty low exercise tolerance despite having high (for a CFer) lung function. Its a good thing that my lung function is so high…we can work with that. From what he said, its easier to increase exercise tolerance with higher lung function than it is with lower function. I hope thats coming out the right way. So we left that meeting with an agreement to go to the gym more often.
Visit two: At the first visit, my PT said to email him with any questions and if I felt like it, I could email him monthly on my progress. So after a week or two at the gym, I emailed him. I told him I'd met with a trainer at the gym and went over some exercises to do, but that I wasn't too happy with what he had shown me. The gym trainer was not all that knowledgable and only showed me the bare minimum. So the PT emailed back and said basically that I needed a more comprehensive program to strengthen ALL my weakened areas. So he offered to have me come in and he'd show me different things. He broke it down into sections, upper, lower and core. We did three different exercises for each area, two reps of each. It was about a 45 minute workout. And while I was doing it, I could definitely feel my lung junk loosening up! My cough was more juicy and I was able to move stuff around! I was instructed to go to the gym 2-3 non-consecutive days per week…do 15 minutes of cardio to warm up, then go through that routine we had done at clinic. I won't go into all the exercises because they were tailored towards what I need. Another CFer may need something different.
Visit three: We did pretty much the same thing as visit two. Although he added a walk test. I walked up and down the hall for 6 minutes and he measured how far I walked. I think I failed this part pretty bad! LOL. And it was not for any specific health reason…I could have gone faster/further but its really awkward walking up and down the length of a hospital hallway. *shame* So after the walk test…he showed me another set of upper, lower and core exercises. So now I have 6 upper exercises to choose from, 6 lower, and 6 core. I am instructed to choose one from each area, do the exercise, repeat once…then choose another set, repeat, then another and repeat. So all in all, on one day at the gym…I'll do my 15 minutes of cardio, then I'll do three upper exercises, three lower and three core.
I'd highly recommend this to any CFer who is looking to increase exercise ability. My PT knows what he's talking about, is knowledgable and experienced and he loves what he does! He's so easy to talk to and I really hope that I can start to see results soon like some of his other patients.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Back to the Grind
Apparently its been a while since I posted! Wooops!
Last time I posted that I had an awful week as far as exercise goes. Well the last two weeks have been even worse…but for good reason. Husband and I went on VACATION!! We took a cruise to Bermuda. It was fantastic. There was only one day (the very first day at sea) that had bad weather, and bad sea sickness as a matter of fact. It was lovely. Actually, the seasickness wasn't too bad, it could have been worse, but I did definitely feel the 7-12 foot wave swells and just had to kind of lay low that day.
I think with the whole build up to the vacation and then the actual vacation I was so exhausted/relaxed/happy that I didn't really feel like exercising. I did not want to use the ship's gym because it probably rarely gets cleaned and the PT I've been working with was totally ok with that. My plan was to maybe do some stuff in our cabin the week we were away, but that didn't happen. The whole week prior to the cruise was spent getting ready, cleaning the house, doing all the laundry and packing…and then of course I couldn't contain my excitement. So by the time we got on the cruise I was ready to chill and do nothing. And relax. Sit by the pool, sip a few drinks, eat a lot of food. Honestly, I didn't feel like doing much else. I don't know if this is a CF thing (as far as the exhaustion issues) or just a normal vacation reaction. I don't necessarily regret the cruise, we are already talking about when we can go on another, but I wish we had participated more. Gone to more shows, played more games. But then again…we went on this vacation to sit in the sun and relax and eat good food (there is SOOOOOOO much food on these ships, OMG). By the end of the day we were wiped out just from that, so we would go back to our cabin and sit on the patio enjoying the sounds, sights and smells of the ocean. Or we would walk around on the top deck of the ship and enjoy the sunset.
But I need to get back to the gym. That will happen today. I promise. After I go to the craft store, a very dangerous place if you ask me. ;) I was going to go to the gym over the weekend (we came back early Friday morning), but again, I was still so exhausted and had more chores that needed doing. I don't want to make excuses, but I need to make sure my body gets enough rest so that I don't end up getting sicker than I am. I did come down with a cold on the cruise which is not surprising to me. There are 3,000 people aboard the ship and we did *gasp* eat the buffet several times for breakfast and lunch. I tend to shy away from buffets because of the germs and dirty little hands that reach over the counter, but I couldn't really help it. The buffet (and all other restaurants on the ship) were delicious and when you are sitting out by the pool its much easier to run into the buffet for a quick bite than to go back to your room, get dressed, and go to a sit down restaurant. So anyway, I don't think the cold has gone to my lungs, but there is still a ton of drainage from my sinuses and a terrible post nasal drip type cough. I have to call the clinic for a refill on something today, so I will run it by them on how to proceed with the symptoms. Honestly, I think once I start exercising again it will get better.
I mentioned earlier that I have been meeting with a PT at my CF clinic. I will blog in more detail the things we've been going over because I think it deserves its own post. But if you have the opportunity to meet with a PT that specializes in CF Care, I'd HIGHLY recommend it. He has been fantastic and really knows his stuff. We are very lucky at my hospital to have him!
I will leave you with some of my favorite pictures from our week away. And yes there will be dolphins. :) They swam alongside our boat for a while on our very last day at sea! Pretty exciting!
This was our last sunset in the port in Bermuda. We had one more full day (we left at 5 pm, so we missed that sunset). *sigh* It was just stunningly gorgeous!
Last time I posted that I had an awful week as far as exercise goes. Well the last two weeks have been even worse…but for good reason. Husband and I went on VACATION!! We took a cruise to Bermuda. It was fantastic. There was only one day (the very first day at sea) that had bad weather, and bad sea sickness as a matter of fact. It was lovely. Actually, the seasickness wasn't too bad, it could have been worse, but I did definitely feel the 7-12 foot wave swells and just had to kind of lay low that day.
I think with the whole build up to the vacation and then the actual vacation I was so exhausted/relaxed/happy that I didn't really feel like exercising. I did not want to use the ship's gym because it probably rarely gets cleaned and the PT I've been working with was totally ok with that. My plan was to maybe do some stuff in our cabin the week we were away, but that didn't happen. The whole week prior to the cruise was spent getting ready, cleaning the house, doing all the laundry and packing…and then of course I couldn't contain my excitement. So by the time we got on the cruise I was ready to chill and do nothing. And relax. Sit by the pool, sip a few drinks, eat a lot of food. Honestly, I didn't feel like doing much else. I don't know if this is a CF thing (as far as the exhaustion issues) or just a normal vacation reaction. I don't necessarily regret the cruise, we are already talking about when we can go on another, but I wish we had participated more. Gone to more shows, played more games. But then again…we went on this vacation to sit in the sun and relax and eat good food (there is SOOOOOOO much food on these ships, OMG). By the end of the day we were wiped out just from that, so we would go back to our cabin and sit on the patio enjoying the sounds, sights and smells of the ocean. Or we would walk around on the top deck of the ship and enjoy the sunset.
But I need to get back to the gym. That will happen today. I promise. After I go to the craft store, a very dangerous place if you ask me. ;) I was going to go to the gym over the weekend (we came back early Friday morning), but again, I was still so exhausted and had more chores that needed doing. I don't want to make excuses, but I need to make sure my body gets enough rest so that I don't end up getting sicker than I am. I did come down with a cold on the cruise which is not surprising to me. There are 3,000 people aboard the ship and we did *gasp* eat the buffet several times for breakfast and lunch. I tend to shy away from buffets because of the germs and dirty little hands that reach over the counter, but I couldn't really help it. The buffet (and all other restaurants on the ship) were delicious and when you are sitting out by the pool its much easier to run into the buffet for a quick bite than to go back to your room, get dressed, and go to a sit down restaurant. So anyway, I don't think the cold has gone to my lungs, but there is still a ton of drainage from my sinuses and a terrible post nasal drip type cough. I have to call the clinic for a refill on something today, so I will run it by them on how to proceed with the symptoms. Honestly, I think once I start exercising again it will get better.
I mentioned earlier that I have been meeting with a PT at my CF clinic. I will blog in more detail the things we've been going over because I think it deserves its own post. But if you have the opportunity to meet with a PT that specializes in CF Care, I'd HIGHLY recommend it. He has been fantastic and really knows his stuff. We are very lucky at my hospital to have him!
I will leave you with some of my favorite pictures from our week away. And yes there will be dolphins. :) They swam alongside our boat for a while on our very last day at sea! Pretty exciting!
The view from our room while we were cruising. I seriously could sit and watch and listen to the ocean all day. I am definitely an ocean lover.
Pulling into port. I believe we circled the island so that we could get some pics. It looks stormy in this shot, but it actually turned out to be a really nice day later on. We docked around 11 am and I think by 1 pm it was sunny and warm.
We went on a wheelchair accessible bus tour. Unfortunately, we didn't really have time to make many stops, but the tour was definitely worthwhile. We got to learn a lot about the architecture, history and the beautiful beaches. This beach was also down a large hill, so would have been inaccessible for a wheelchair. There was a small accessible beach near the dock that we went to one day also.
Eeeeeekkk!!! <3 <3 <3
A gorgeous sunrise from our balcony. As you can see, the seas were very calm when this shot was taken.
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