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Passive
Exercise: Why?
Individuals with
muscle debilitating conditions, such as Multiple Sclerosis, Post Polio Syndrome, Muscular
Dystrophy, Strokes, etc, must exercise but are unable to do what individuals without any
disability can do. A normal, healthy human being can go to the gym and work out and
develop stronger muscles by active exercise. This individual has the complement of muscle
designed to move all parts of his body in what we have come to expect as normal. They
become stronger by actively contracting their muscles.
In contrast, a muscle-debilitating individual has less available normal muscle than his
non-debilitating cousin does. When he contracts his good muscle, he is trying to move the
same areas, just with less muscle. It is obvious that eventually he will overuse his good
muscle and will lose the function of what remaining good muscle. What can he do? Passive
Exercise. When the disabled person has all the muscles and joints moved for him,
he comes close to beneficial exercise as possible. What we do at Body Designer, with our
Thera Plex unit is to passively move all the muscles and joints in our client's body in a
regular, systematic, and repetitive manner. This gives the stretching so crucial and
necessary to good muscle health. It gives the joint motion that prevents frozen joints. It
moves the tissue fluids through the areas that a disabled person has lost the ability to
do. All this contribute to a good muscle and joint condition as a disabled person can
possibly obtain.
The difference for these individuals between active and passive exercise is the difference
between being mobile and being wheelchair bound. When your good muscle is moved passively,
you can maintain mobility. When you move your muscles actively, you will destroy it and
lose mobility. "Overuse Syndrome"
Exercise is essential to health. Nothing could be more truthful in a muscle debilitating
person. Passive Exercise will maintain health under these circumstances.
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