Spondylitis Association of America Forums General Discussion General Message Board for Ankylosing Spondylitis and Related Diseases Pilates/Yoga - Exercising

Hello, I'm curious if anyone else out there does pilates/yoga type exercises? I have been doing them since February. I shoot for most days of the week if I can. I've also had the worst several months in a while pain-wise. I've also been on meds for the first starting last December. So, I thought I'd see some improvement by now.

I lessened up this last week and I feel better. What's the deal?? I don't think I was doing anything too extreme. Mostly 30 minutes at a time and some posture exercises. Felt great while doing them and enjoy it. I wasn't "sore"...just pain level was higher. I'm going to start back on my normal routine. Just curious what other people do for exercise and your experiences.

I don't do pilates or yoga, so I can't offer any feedback there. I do some stretches each day, and I do water aerobics 3 times a week. The water aerobics have made a big difference for me.

I had done Pilates with a private instructor for years and stopped for reasons aside from AS. During the interim I moved to another city, got diagnosed with AS, and decided I'd try Pilates again because it was really the only form of exercise I'd ever stuck with. It didn't go well at all though with AS. I thought it was the instructors in my new city so I tried doing the exercises on my own so I could really pace myself, but my AS pain greatly increased, along with having horrible lower back spasms. Like you, it didn't hurt while I was doing it, and it actually felt good when doing it, but afterwords my pain increased substantially. The subsequent pain was not the usual "soreness from working out", but was an AS kind of pain.
I have a lot of enthesitis in my extremities in addition to back pain/inflammation. Exercises like Pilates and yoga really seem to cause the enthesitis to fire up. I've given up on Pilates and I try to just do simple stretches. I bought an exercise video from the Spondylitis Association and I try to do a few of those exercises daily. I've found that when I first started out doing the AS video I had to limit my exercise time to just 10 minutes and go up VERY slowly from there. It's been quite a struggle for me to find the right amount of exercise that didn't cross me over the line and make things worse.

I find pilates really helpful, but I always tell the instructor what bits are giving me trouble on the day, and if an exercise seems to be aggravating something - sometimes I have an exercise that might be good for my hips say, but makes my T-spine feel worse