Yes You Can - Fourth Edition - 198

Strengthening increases the force of contracting muscles, while endurance training increases a muscle’s ability to contract repeatedly without becoming fatigued. Exercise to improve muscle strength and endurance is important for a number of reasons: To allow you to get where you need to go, whether you push a manual wheelchair, drive a power wheelchair with your hand or head, or walk. To enable you to move and take care of yourself as independently as possible. To protect you from injuries. To support good upright posture. Muscle Strength and Endurance Training Depending on your injury level and amount of paralysis, you’ll have some muscles that you can control and some that you can’t. [See section 1.a, Anatomy, Physiology, and Research.] The muscles above your level of injury should be unaﬀected, but they might be weak because of the bed rest and inactivity after your injury. If you have a complete paralysis below your injury level, some muscles no longer work at all, so they can’t be strengthened with exercises. If you have a motor incomplete SCI, some of the muscles below your level of injury work, but they’re probably weak. The goal of strengthening exercises is to encourage the muscles that you can control to work as well as possible. During your rehabilitation, your physical and occupational therapists will design an exercise program to target all the muscle groups that you can strengthen. Your program is tailored speciﬁcally for you. For example, people who can’t move anything but their heads and necks will have a program to target the neck and breathing muscles, while people who can move all their limbs will have extensive programs that target all muscle groups. Regardless of your level of injury, breathing exercises are important to keep your respiratory system strong and healthy. [See section 1.c, Respiratory Care, for detailed information.] There are many equipment options for strength training, including weights, pulleys, and resistance bands. Whether you’re just ﬁnishing your rehabilitation or have had your spinal cord injury for a while, the recommendations for muscle strength training are as follows: Intensity [resistance or weight]: 50%–80% of the most weight you can lift once. Duration: 2–3 sets of 10 repetitions. Frequency: at least twice a week. Endurance training requires exercise at a lower intensity with more repetitions. Cardiorespiratory [Aerobic] Conditioning Aerobic conditioning improves the body’s ability to use oxygen by training the heart, lungs, and muscles to work more eﬃciently during a sustained activity. Aerobic exercise is important for the following reasons: To improve your heart and lung function both at rest and during activity. To improve blood ﬂow and oxygen delivery to muscles and skin. To decrease the risk of heart disease. To improve the body’s ability to burn fat. To provide the body with more energy for daily activities. Stretching Flexibility exercises help maintain or increase the length and mobility of muscles and tendons to allow the body to move as normally as possible. [For details on stretching, see section 2.c, Limb Preservation and Posture, and Appendix A, Range-of-Motion Exercises.] [ 198 ] | Yes, You Can!

Yes You Can - Fourth Edition

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Yes You Can - Fourth Edition