People with Multiple Sclerosis are often told to rest and not overdo. At the same time, the fear of fatigue can become unbearable. However, there’s no real basis for this fear, because people with MS are not fragile.

Also, clinical trials have shown that proper exercise can increase fitness and also reduce fatigue. The process is slow and begins with a carefully developed exercise prescription. As with any medication, the exercise routine should be prescribed either by a physical therapist or by a physician who knows how to develop exercises for a specific individual.

For people with MS any exercise prescription should have four elements:

1. Type (aerobic, strengthening, balance, coordination, stretching, etc)
2. Duration (how long one should exercise)
3. Frequency (how often one should exercise)
4. Intensity (how hard one should exercise)

As already said, exercise Multiple Sclerosis exercise is a controversial subject. This is mainly because the term exercise is misunderstood – for many people it means no pain no gain. However, for persons with Multiple Sclerosis exercising to the point of pain means fatigue and increased weakness. For people with Multiple Sclerosis exercise has to mean fitness. Fitness implies general overall health and its goal is improving the functioning of lungs, muscle, heart and all the other organs. This is attained with proper diet, not smoking, and appropriate exercises.

As already said, for a person with MS best way to learn which exercises are good, is to ask help from a professional and get a prescription, as there are different exercises used to reduce spasticity, and different exercises in combating weakness and reducing stiffness, etc. Relaxation must be considered an equally important thing, because a person who is under stress will experience increase in weakness. This is why knowing how to relax should be part of any program destined to reduce weakness and fatigue. 

The proper exercise prescription needs to take into account that no exercise should cause pain – “no pain no gain” doesn’t apply to MS. The proper exercise routine needs to be a balanced one that includes different types of exercises that lead to improving the overall condition. With this kind of improvement, a gain in strength is to be expected.