What exercises can help with stiffness, bending, and trouble straightening up after long periods of standing with muscular dystrophy?
Spending 8+ hours on your feet and then struggling to straighten back up sounds really exhausting and frustrating. That stiffness and difficulty recovering is something many people with MD Show Full Answer
What exercises can help with stiffness, bending, and trouble straightening up after long periods of standing with muscular dystrophy?
Spending 8+ hours on your feet and then struggling to straighten back up sounds really exhausting and frustrating. That stiffness and difficulty recovering is something many people with MD deal with, and it's worth addressing carefully.
A few gentle approaches that may help with flexibility and stiffness include:
- Gentle stretching — helps keep muscles more flexible and can reduce stiffness over time
- Chair yoga — low-impact and great for flexibility without overloading muscles
- Aquatic therapy — water takes pressure off joints and muscles, making movement easier
- Range-of-motion exercises — help maintain how far joints can comfortably move It's really important to avoid high-resistance or eccentric exercises (where muscles stretch under load), as these can cause further muscle damage with MD.
One myMDteam member shared, "PT at this point in our disease progression is mostly for flexibility. You may also get some small gains in strength. More importantly for me, I feel like I have some control over my body and over muscular dystrophy."
The stiffness and difficulty straightening up after long periods on your feet is something a physical therapist who specializes in MD can really help with. They can build a plan tailored specifically to your body and how your MD has progressed. It's worth bringing this up with your doctor soon, especially since it's affecting your daily movement and safety.
September 18
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