Exercise Progression?

[Lily]

I have hyperandrenergic POTS with blood pooling, work full time as a college professor, and no exercise intolerance. My doctor did not give me much guidance on exercise, other than to work up to 30 minutes of cardio against resistance 3x/wk. What do I do now that I can meet that goal? Work on increasing the resistance? The duration of exercise? Both? Maintain and focus on weightlifting?

And speaking of weightlifting, what should my leg exercises be aimed at, pure strength, hypertrophy,or muscular endurance?

What have you all been told?

[statesof]

I think the aim is really to try and retrain your heart to work properly (or at least something along those lines) so I would assume the if you can do 30 minutes of cardio why not increase it to 40 minutes? And with leg weights I would also think it would be better to focus on endurance, so lower weight with more reps, rather than more weight with less reps. I am nowhere near that point so maybe other members can share their experience.

[looneymom]

My son is able to ride a stationary bike for 25 minutes. His doctor wanted him to go up to the next resistance level. So this is how he wanted him to do this. Bike for 24 minutes at beginning resistance level and raise up the next resistance level on the last minute. He wants my son to ride a total of 25 minutes but gradually increase the resistance a minute every week. My son started on this new plan in December after he saw his cardiologisit. This week, he is riding 20 minutes with beginning resistance and the last 5 minutes with the next level of resistance. When he can do all 25 minutes on level 2 resistance, then he will move up to level 3. My son bikes 3 days a week and does leg and core strengthening exercise 2 days a week. He is just now starting exercise that require standing and adds weight with ankle weights and hand weights. My son is not ready for the gym yet. When he is able to lift over 10lbs with leg and arm weights, he will be ready to go to the gym.

However, it sounds like you might be ready for the qym to do exercises like leg presses and leg curls. If you can lift more than 10 lbs in ankle or arm weights, then the gym is probably the place to go and work with a trainer.

[firewatcher]

Weight training, in the exercise program that was suggested for me, was to do 2 sets of 10 reps. The weight should be great enough that the last 2 reps of the last set are difficult. Once they became easier, I was to increase the amount of weight lifted. In my prior experience, that meant "lifting heavy:" greater weight and less reps. The concentration of the exercises were on the bigger muscle groups (quads and hamstrings) and especially the calves. The goal was to strengthen the "muscle pump" through increased hypertrophy (size) of the muscle.