Exercising when you have health issues

What are the benefits of exercise if you have a health condition?

“Being active has many health benefits,” explains Lesley-Anne Robertson, a cardiac physiotherapist at NHS Highland in Scotland.

“It improves your heart and lung health, your breathing, your bone and muscle strength, and your mental wellbeing. Don’t be afraid to exercise. Seek support and guidance. Keeping active is much better than doing nothing.”

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How to start exercising

Senior woman gardening

It’s important to chat with your doctor about what’s right for you. If you’re invited to cardiac rehab, this is a great opportunity to learn which exercise is safe for you.

You might want to ask questions such as:

How do I know when I’m working too hard?
Where can I get reliable information about appropriate exercises?
What local groups and classes can you recommend?”

“You might want to ask how exercise will affect your condition: for example, if you have diabetes, exercise can affect your blood sugars. In the long run exercise can lower blood pressure, which is a good thing, but something to keep an eye on if you’re taking hypertension medication.”

She adds: “If you’ve never exercised before, start small. It might be just walking for five minutes. The important thing is to be physically active. It doesn’t have to be formal exercise. It could be gardening or playing with your grandkids. Do what you enjoy and build from there.”

Find out some simple ways to make exercise fun.

Adapting your exercises

Man doing stretching exercise in wheelchair

If you experience pain in one part of your body or have a disability, it’s worth spending time finding what exercise is best for you.

“There’s no point doing an activity that gives you pain or you struggle with,” says Ms Robertson. “But even if you’ve got an issue with one part or one side of your body, the rest of your body can still be moving around, getting your heart rate up, getting your heart to work a little harder so it gets stronger.

“It’s about figuring out what works for you. I get lower back pain and can’t walk for more than two miles without it playing up, but I can cycle for miles. Some people feel more comfortable walking than sitting when they’ve got lower back pain.”

If you’re not sure what exercise is right, ask your doctor for advice, or if they can refer you for specialist advice. For people with lower back pain, bad knees, hip replacements or balance and mobility issues, chair-based exercises can be a good option.

Try these simple guided workouts

Learn these 5 simple chair-based exercises
10 strength exercises you can do at home
Watch our cardiac rehab exercise videos
Try these low impact aerobic exercises

Gradually building up exercise

When starting or first getting back to exercise, Ms Robertson advises people to exercise every other day, to recover in between.

When you’re sure the exercise is at a manageable level, you can gradually increase it.

What is the FITT principle?

Ms Robertson says it can be helpful to use the FITT principle. “FITT stands for frequency (how often), intensity (how hard are you working), time (how long are you doing it for) and type (is it an activity that increases your heart rate, or a balance and strength exercise?)” She says it’s best to only increase one FITT factor each time.

“If you go from walking 30 minutes to 40 minutes, don’t change anything else. Or perhaps now you can walk a few doors down the street comfortably, you then aim to get to the end of the road.”

How much exercise should I aim for a week?

The NHS recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity a week. “If you can do 30 minutes, five days a week, you’ll hit that target,” says Ms Robertson.

She adds: “Moderate-intensity means you should be getting a little warm and a little out of breath, but still able to have a conversation. For some people, doing housework could be moderate-intensity.”

If possible, exercise for at least 10 minutes continuously. “So, 10 minutes, three times a day, is a good starting point. But if you find it hard to do 10 minutes, for example because you have heart failure, even five minutes is better than nothing.”

How much exercise is too much?

If you experience any of the following symptoms, stop exercising immediately:

You are so out of breath you can’t say your address easily
Chest pain or any other pain you associate with angina (such as jaw or arm pain)
Tightness in the chest
Light-headedness, nausea or dizziness

“If these symptoms don’t settle after a few minutes, seek medical help,” says Ms Robertson. “If they do settle, consider trying the exercise again another day, at a lower intensity. If you try it a few times at lower intensities and still get symptoms, this activity isn’t right for you.”

Even if you feel comfortable, it’s important to pace yourself. “You might want to keep gardening for 40 minutes because you’re feeling great today but if you know 20 minutes is your usual limit, try sticking to that so you’ll have energy the next day,” says Ms Robertson. “Over time, you’ll know what level of activity feels comfortable and you can build on that.”