The Top 5 Reasons Exercise Hasn’t Worked For You In The Past
What sets Autoimmune Strong apart from other workout programs?
Well, good question.
The number #1 thing that sets Autoimmune Strong apart from other exercise programs is the emphasis on this phrase:
“Listen to Your Body”
I say this phrase ALL THE TIME. But I want to explain a little bit about what it really means.
You see, most other traditional and mainstream workout programs teach you to ignore the signals your body is sending. They teach you to push through the pain. To do more than you think you are capable of doing.
These are some common phrases we hear:
“Keep Pushing!”
“Don’t Stop Now!”
“Don’t Give Up On Yourself!”
Now, I understand completely why this is the advice being given. Because the way exercise works- the way you can make effective change to your body- is by volume. The more exercise you do, the stronger you will become. These trainers and workout programs are trying to get you to do more so that you gain more volume in your workout, so you can get results quickly and fulfill their promise of rapid physical change, such as losing a lot of weight or gaining those ever coveted 6 pack abs.
However, these programs, with this kind of “push through the pain” attitude, can be harmful for people living with autoimmune disease. Here are the 5 reasons why.
The Challenge Is Too Much: Most exercise programs are designed to be more aggressive both in pacing and in difficulty of the moves themselves than many people can handle. They don’t offer alternatives or modifications. They start at what they call an easy level- but “easy” for a fitness professional is not often “easy” for real people. So- from the very first day, we are given a challenge that is far too advanced for us. The motto of “no pain no gain” tells us that we should push through this great challenge and that are our body will adapt- and while sometimes that’s true- sometimes it’s not, especially for people living with autoimmune disease. That’s because of exercise intolerance.
Exercise Intolerance. This is commonly experienced but rarely discussed side effect of autoimmune disease. That’s because autoimmune disease symptoms are triggered by stress- and one form of stress on the body is exercise. Yep- you got it right- exercise = stress. That’s actually what makes exercise work; exercise is effective because it adds stress to the body, and that kind of positive stress can create positive change, like stronger muscles. However, there is a bell curve to this- and at some point, this kind of exercise stress is no longer positive, instead, it becomes negative. It becomes too much stress on the body, and the body becomes overwhelmed and overtaxed- and that’s when a flare-up happens. It comes to shut the body down so it can recover and get back to the baseline of homeostasis. So, this encouragement to push through can actually backfire- and cause a flare-up that sidelines you for weeks, days, even months.
Our Internal Fear Response. We live in a world where this kind of “no pain no gain” messaging is pervasive. So, we give it a try. It doesn’t work and we feel worse. Then we rest and recover and repeat- with the same results. This creates a cycle of fear, which we often misread as a “lack of motivation or willpower”. We want to exercise, but we lack the motivation or willpower to do it. We often blame this on ourselves (more on this in #3 below) but really- it’s our body creating this lack of motivation as a protective measure. Our bodies are so smart, and we have pain memories… and we remember how awful our exercise induced symptom flare-ups have been. So our bodies are resistant to exercise, because they don’t want to be thrown into a spin cycle again- and THIS is where the lack of motivation comes from. It’s actually a fear response. We are subconsciously fearful of what the exercise will do to us- and what setbacks we will experience.
Our Shame Cycle. So, we are experiencing this lack of motivation, triggered by the subconscious fear response and protective measure- yet we are still living in this world that makes us feel like we are “lazy” if we don’t exercise. We get stuck in a shame cycle, where we feel like we should be exercising, but we really don’t want to- and then we feel guilt and shame for not doing it. We beat ourselves up for not doing “enough” but when we try to do more we feel pain. We watch other people be able to exercise this way, and we get frustrated because we can’t. We feel like we are doing something wrong, or that we just aren’t pushing ourselves hard enough. This guilt and shame can be exacerbated if the people around you simply don’t understand how exercise can exacerbate the autoimmune symptoms. These people are often well meaning, but their words of encouragement are often just echoing the “no pain no gain” methods of exercise, which can make us feel even worse when we can’t keep up.
Mistrusting Our Own Internal Cues. This confusion, where we feel like we should be doing exercise like the doctors and the fitness professionals tell us- but we know we can’t- but we feel we must- all it does it lead us to mistrust our own internal cues. We believe that the professionals know more than we do, so we ignore our own intuition and continue to follow their lead. Over time, the mistrust of our body’s internal cues grow and it bleeds into other areas of our lives, where we do too much, we push too hard, and then we flare as a result.
You see, we blame ourselves for not being able to stick to an exercise routine, for not being able to be consistent with our exercise- but it’s that old saying “It’s Not You...” Because it might FEEL like it’s your fault- but it’s actually not your fault at all. It’s the fault of the exercise program itself, for pushing your body too hard, for asking you to do exercises that are more challenging than you are ready for, for not taking your pain into account, and most importantly- for teaching you to ignore your own internal physical cues.
In Autoimmune Strong, we do things differently. We teach you to unravel these old thought patterns, so you can open your body up to a new kind of exercise experience. We offer exercises with lots of pacing and motivation options- so you can pick the one that suits you best, so you don’t have to push. Our exercises are both quick and effective, so you don’t have to overwhelm the body to get strong. Our goal is to give you the tools to learn to listen to your body and those internal pain cues- and know what to do when your body sends you signals. It’s time to try something new!