training too hard with auotimmune

I've been wondering the same thing, actually. I'm 45 and have always trained very hard daily at the gym for 1+ hours. I'm in a mild flare right now, and have taken the past two days off. Suddenly, my symptoms are easing up. Since hard training and cardio will cause general inflammation in your body, it makes sense that this might also exacerbate swelling in the colon.

At the same time, I refuse to stop exercising altogether so am just going to scale back a little on intensity and duration and see how my body reacts. Hope that is helpful.

Hard to answer this but my understanding is that exercise causes inflammation, and if we are already fighting inflammation with our autoimmune problems it is kind of exhausting for our bodies which do not have sufficient resources to heal the autoimmune inflammation, so our flare symptoms can get worse. On the other hand, moderate exercise is good for boosting energy and mood. So it's a question of finding the right balance.

I used to be a semi-professional dancer and in my early UC days I was training up to 9 times a week (including cross training) even when flaring - I did find that after a particularly intense training I would have more blood the next day, and at a certain point it became physically impossible to meet the requirements of a competitive dancer. Eventually I hurt my back and had to take a break from sports - it was during the period that I was resuming and building up activities I went into remission, but I have never gone back up to my previous training levels because I am just too tired. I still train 3-4 times a week and have a dog who requires ~ 1 hour of walking per day, which is a decent amount, but it's not at the level I used to be. I am 40 if that helps.... I think if I was really focused with sleep and nutrition I could probably train at a more intense level but my 9-5 job is too demanding to fit everything in and get enough rest. I had already decided I would "retire" from dance competitions by my 40th anyway, as even healthy people are slowing down by that point.

Absolutely...if you rev up your body, you will react, especially if you have autoimmune and are symptomatic. Exercise is good...but pushing your body beyond what it can handle is its deciding factor, not yours. Your mind might feel awesome, but the body is what always pays the price.
Exercise is subjective as what it means...but rigorous regimens puts everything into high gear.
You do have options.

q

This post has been extremely eye-opening for me! I had never heard of the relationship between exercise and symptoms before. I have been in varying degrees of flare for 18 months and when I’m feeling well my main exercise is just a daily half mile walk. But when we spend a few days away we ramp up our walking to many miles, sometimes walking the city all day. It’s not high speed walking by any means but it’s a definite increase in output (and always makes me feel more like my previous fit and active self, as long walking was a big part of my pre-colitis life). I always have at least one bad day or night on these trips, in spite of keeping a close eye on diet. Maybe this is why.

I don't train competitively but I do work out pretty much every day. I also walk to work, so I am getting between 60-90 minutes of exercise daily. Only 35-45 minutes is actually working out (running/rowing/strength training/yoga). Sometimes I will go on a long run (an hour or more) but I always run these at a very relaxed pace. I have been trying to keep my runs at 80/20, with the 80% being lower intensity and only 20% high intensity. When I do this my UC is not bothered, but if I flip that ratio to closer to 50/50 I get crampy and gassy.

Early on in my diagnosis, I was doing Crossfit and Olympic weightlifting almost every day. I can't imagine doing that these days.

I have switched to low-impact exercise. I do Pilates and ballet/barre classes now. Still good workouts, but waaaay gentler on my joints.

Ahh, i am very angry because of this UC effect.
I hate it. I did many kind of sport from i was 10 years till approx 30 years old.

My prof GI sad me this is very interesting because nobody told him similar effect with colitis. ( exercise cause flarr)

I dont know what can be the root cause of it.

1.Maybe the colon is stil injured and there is no capacity to handle less blood there( maybe because the injured bloodstream or i dont know)

2.Maybe the antioxidant system is not working well and this theory is real.


But i am very very angry now i have extre weight before uc i was always slim and sporty. Now my body is disgrace to me.
I do diet, but i can not make muscles with diet.

Hambo... I am still slim and sporty with UC, but I just cannot train at the level of a top/professional athlete, it is too much for me. It is disappointing but luckily not my career....I tend to think of it that excess exercise(= stress) prevents the body from healing and repairing itself rather than causes flare ups, but that's mostly from my experience and not scientific.