Day 3 getting back to regular exercise

[George]

Last year at this time I was jogging or cycling pretty much every day. I weighed 20 pounds less, and I was enjoying a healthy diet. I gave up regular jogging because it seemed to make my back and gut issues worse. But I usually felt better WHILE I was running. I guess this is probably because I was getting more blood and oxygen to the tissues that were lacking. It was after exercising that all the pain came back on.

I've run a little here and there over the past month, and I started cycling again--three times over the past couple of weeks. And I was fine after cycling. I'm going to make a commitment to jogging 3 times a week, and cycling 3 times a week, starting today. If I feel pain, I'm going to think psychological. I'm going to go a little easier on myself as far as distance and time go, as I think it's just important that I get active again, and don't over do it and burn out.

Thanks for reading and for your good thoughts.

 

[BruceMC]

I would advise you to increase your jogging and cycling times and distances in small pain-free increments. Hence, if you can ride the bike for a half hour without pain, stick to that time and distance for a long period before increasing your time and distance up another step. Same with jogging or running. Once you've established a base pain-free interval for a while, then move it up another notch. No, I'm not an exercise coach! I read this in James Alexander's new book, The Hidden Psychology of Pain (2012), and I haven't seen any other regimes like his for getting back to full activity level, as Dr Sarno himself recommends. Dr Sarno does say to take it slowly at first, and if you hurt back off, but Alexander actually has specific recommendations on how to do it. Alexander says that if you can walk for 3 minutes without pain, walk 3-minute intervals for a good long time before you move up to 6-minutes of pain-free walking. I don't know how you would apply that exactly to your jogging and cycling, but you could try completing the same pain-free interval of biking or jogging every day before you add to it. Then, do the same thing over again with the new interval until you feel it's time to add on some more time and distance.