Have You Ever Coached Someone With MS

[Jason_LeCoure]

I'm going to begin the program this coming Monday, but I'm currently too weak to squat properly, and my balance is poor. Is there anything, in your experience, that I can do to help myself get to a point where I can squat properly? I have function in both hamstrings and quads, but they're weak because of the nerve damage. I appreciate any advice you can give me.

I'm dealing with similar issues due to different causes (arthritis, I was laid up for a long while. I also have peripheral neuropathy in the feet and legs - man nerve pain sucks ). While it may be heresy to suggest this these days - I found the leg press machine to be a really helpful piece of equipment. When I started lifting again I did leg presses 3x per week increasing the weight each time. I could not do a bodyweight squat. I also "tried" to do a squat a couple of times a day (falling forward onto my hands) until I could do one. Once I could do a squat I spent a few days doing body weight without concern for form. Then after I could do a few I went with the broom handle. And finally started using weight last week (20lb barbell to 30lb to olympic bar). I get to add weight to the bar for the first time on Monday coming. It has taken an entire month to get to this point.

Best of luck!

[Mark Rippetoe]

The use of the leg press is not heresy. I have one in here. There is a perfectly legitimate role for it in the training of certain special populations. The trick is knowing when you've left the special population.

[killyouintheface]

I'm dealing with similar issues due to different causes (arthritis, I was laid up for a long while. I also have peripheral neuropathy in the feet and legs - man nerve pain sucks ). While it may be heresy to suggest this these days - I found the leg press machine to be a really helpful piece of equipment. When I started lifting again I did leg presses 3x per week increasing the weight each time. I could not do a bodyweight squat. I also "tried" to do a squat a couple of times a day (falling forward onto my hands) until I could do one. Once I could do a squat I spent a few days doing body weight without concern for form. Then after I could do a few I went with the broom handle. And finally started using weight last week (20lb barbell to 30lb to olympic bar). I get to add weight to the bar for the first time on Monday coming. It has taken an entire month to get to this point.

Best of luck!

Yeah, my biggest issue isn't the MS, it's the neuropathy and damage to the nerves in my legs. I grew up a big, fat bastard, and the son of an offensive lineman, so I inherited good genetics for leg muscles. That's probably why I'm still walking at all.

I do bodyweight squats often, ever since I got it in my head that I wanted to squat (and correctly), so I'm doing a lot of relearning where my balance is and how I can tell where my body is in space. It's interesting, the things that I used to do without thinking about it, like taking a step, now that I have dropfoot and all this nerve damage, have become something like an intellectual pursuit.

We'll see where it goes. I'll air squat and leg press and do what I can and progress as I'm able.

Thanks everybody. Didn't mean to hijack the thread.

Oh, I forgot something. I have access to a reverse hyper at my gym. Would that be worth putting some work in on, inasmuch as it could help me with strengthening my posterior chain as a group?

[Mark Rippetoe]

A reverse hyper won't hurt anything, but the coordinated use of all the muscles that normally coordinate is the thing you need to train the most.

[killyouintheface]

A reverse hyper won't hurt anything, but the coordinated use of all the muscles that normally coordinate is the thing you need to train the most.

Yessir, I understand that, and agree with you. I'm just trying to make sure that I'm doing any extra work that I could be doing toward that end.

[TexasAg]

Thought I would throw in my 2 cents... My mother-in-law has MS. My wife and I had to put her in a nursing home about 5 years ago now. She's in her early 50's.

What I've noticed is that when she went from living on her own in an apartment to lying in a bed in a nursing home for most of the day, she went downhill rapidly. My wife and I believe that the daily activity of doing things as simple as going to the grocery store helped keep the MS at bay for a number of years (she was diagnosed before my wife was even born). She was getting worse over time but it was slow and gradual.

Once she was mostly sedentary, the decline was dramatic. She went from being able to use a wheelchair and drive a car with hand controls to being unable to sit upright on her own in less than 2 years. She can no longer pick up the phone when we call or even feed herself.

Clearly most people's MS will never advance to this point. But the moral of the story is that you should lift heavy things and stay active as often as you can for as long as you can. A) Because you never know when the ability to do that might be taken away from you and B) when you quit using your body, it seems that it provides an opportunity for MS to advance faster that it would if you were physically active.