Exercise is one of the most essential components in the fibromyalgia treatment program. However, most of the patients complain of suffering from pain and having difficulty while doing exercises. To keep the patients from the pain the best way is the water exercises. Water provides a number of benefits to make exercising easier and effective and moreover less painful.

Some of the benefits of water exercises in the fibromyalgia treatment include:

• The buoyancy of water decreases the effect of gravity and displaces almost 85% of the body weight. This makes it easier for you to move your body, as you don’t have to support the whole weight.

• The water buoyancy also takes the weight off the joints making it easier for you to move them.

• The hydrostatic pressure reduces the swelling of the joints and also the inflammation. This makes exercising less painful and easier to perform.

• Water provides resistance that helps you in improving the strength and improving the balance of the body. This resistance also helps in burning more calories as much as twice that you would burn while doing the same exercise on land.

• Doing exercises in water promotes relaxation and lessens the perception of pain and helps in reducing the muscle fatigue.

All the exercises have a version of water exercises. Apart from swimming, which is the most common exercise, you can also try water walking, stretching in water and water jogging. There are also water aerobics. And water kickboxing that you can do. The most recent form of water exercise is yoga, which is the modified version of many yoga positions performed in the upright position.

The water exercises can be performed either on an individual basis or in a class. The individual programs are designed to meet your particular needs whereas classes are cheaper and are as effective as individual as long as you don’t have a special need that needs to be attended in individual program.

Before you start water exercises there are certain things that you should know about:

• Before you start water exercise you should consult your doctor. There are some patients for who doctors do not recommend water exercises.

• Look for a qualified doctor or a physiotherapist who can help you.

• Check the temperature of the pool. Most of the people suffering from fibromyalgia are sensitive to cold water so it is better if the temperature of the water is close to the body temperature. However, it is suggested that you should not exercise in a hot tub without taking advice from the doctor. Exercising in hot water can be really dangerous.

• You should start exercising slowly at not more than 20 to 30 minutes for 2 to 3 times in a week. You should increase your time to 45 minutes to one hour. But make sure that you don’t overdo the exercises.

• If you experience any pain stop exercising and do not push yourself through it. If a particular exercise causes pain then talk to your instructor for an alternative way.

So take the advice of your doctor and then start doing the water exercises that can help you get relief from the fibromyalgia pain.

Jonathan Pitts

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