Being Active

This page covers:
– The benefits you can get from physical activity
– How to incorporate exercise into your daily routine
– How to safely increase your physical activity

Exercise and physical fitness are vitally important for people with cerebral palsy to improve our quality of life and help prevent declines in mobility, cardiovascular health and mental health. But exercise can be much more draining for people with Cerebral Palsy, so what is a CP-centric approach?

Attitude is very important. How can we create a love of activity, rather than seeing it as a chore? How can we be sensible about what we do within our energy budget? What are simple steps we can take?

The Benefits of Physical Activity

Maintaining physical fitness such as aerobic fitness and muscle strength may help to slow the deterioration in mobility. Regular exercise helps improve quality of life and reduces risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, several cancers, arthritis and back pain.

Improved wellbeing benefits also include: increased energy and fitness; relief of stress, anxiety, anger, and depression; increased happiness; improved sleep; and opportunities to decrease isolation and loneliness.

For an adult with Cerebral Palsy, maintaining activity levels is particularly important for reducing the risk of deconditioning, maintaining muscle strength and flexibility, helping retain the ability to do daily activities and can be beneficial for pain and fatigue management.

Maintaining a healthy weight and avoiding obesity is especially important for adults with Cerebral Palsy, to reduce the strain on already stressed joints and muscles.

How much physical activity is good for you?

It is recommended that disabled adults should do between 120 and 180 minutes of physical activity at a moderate to vigorous intensity plus do 2 sets of challenging strength and balance exercises twice per week.

People with Cerebral Palsy use up to twice as much energy as people without cerebral palsy to walk. Performing any activity as part of daily life can therefore be considered intense exercise for people with cerebral palsy.

It’s important to remember that increasing your current physical activity level by a small amount and replacing sedentary behaviours such as sitting with standing or light activity can have benefits. Some people may not be able to achieve the recommended levels because of the impact of cerebral palsy on their ability to do activity or because of their current fitness level. Doing less than this can still have benefits, particularly if your current level of fitness is low, so don’t be disheartened if you can’t reach these levels.

How to exercise

For people who find it difficult to participate in, or access, structured exercise programmes, being more physically active may be as beneficial as structured exercise. For example, by taking more steps each day, standing for short period of times, self-propelling in a wheelchair,.

Aiming to maintain how much activity you perform is itself a big achievement. For some people, maintaining current levels of physical activity can be an important goal and should be acknowledged as a success.

How can I be more active?

Think activity rather than exercise

• Move to another chair every 15 minutes whilst watching TV
• Get up to make tea during the adverts
• Stand rather than sit when reading documents at work
• Orthopaedic issues
• Plan your workload so you have to move around every 30 minutes
• Walk around your couch during the TV adverts
• Schedule regular bathroom breaks when you’re sitting at a computer or TV
• Increase the number of wheelchair transfers you perform in a day

How can you increase your physical activity in a safe way?

• Start low-and-go-slow! This means that you should start from where you are at the moment and make any changes gradually.
• Do what you enjoy. You may need to try several different types of activities to find one that you like doing.
• Start by increasing the amount of activities that you already do, like walking, rather than taking up new activities.
• Gradually increase the amount of physical activity that you do and the intensity of physical activity. Monitor the steps you take each day, and also walk at a quicker speed.
• Wear sturdy shoes or trainers when you carry out physical activity. Use any walking aids that you need to keep yourself steady.
• It is normal for your body to ache after doing activity. However, if you find that you ache a lot after doing activity, you may have done too much too quickly. Rest for a day and then try doing slightly less next time.
• Stop before you get overly tired (don’t carry on until you are exhausted). Take breaks.
• Alternate heavier physical exercise with more moderate or gentle activity on the following day.
• Break the activity down into smaller stages (e.g. 5-10 minutes at a time) if you need to.
• Avoid vigorous activity if you are unwell, injured or fatigued, but you can still try to do some form of movement, even standing intermittently.

5 top tips from CPISRA (Cerebral Palsy International Sports and Recreation Association):

1. Use the STEP tool to be active. Step stands for Space, Task, Equipment, People. Change one or more elements of an activity to make it more accessible and inclusive for everyone.
2. Explore your local disability sport organisations to see what is on offer in your area. Check out CP Sport, Scottish Disability Sport for national information or look at the Activity Alliance.
3. Explore your neighbourhood, go for a walk or wheel and discover new things in the 1-mile radius around your house. 20 mins out of the house can be great to clear your head!
4. It’s not all about getting to the gym, pool or sports club. Think about “incidental” exercise throughout your day. For example, park further away from your end destinations so that you need to walk or wheel that little bit more, or perform five sit-to-stands every time you transfer out of your seat, stretch while you watch TV.
5. Exercise with friends! Encourage your friends to join you for a walk or challenge each other to do a certain exercise every day for a month.

LEGS – Local Exercise Groups for stroke and neurological conditions

LEGS is a registered charity providing physiotherapist-led supported exercise groups for people who are living with neurological conditions including cerebral palsy. We have a range of exercise groups catering for different abilities and needs. Currently all of our groups have people with a variety of conditions attending each group and are not condition specific. All the exercise groups aim to help you work towards individualised goals and become more active. Together, we work to become stronger fitter and healthier.

Every individual joining LEGS has a one-to-one online assessment with a highly specialist neuro physiotherapist to determine suitability for the groups and will have access to ongoing re-assessments as part of their membership. Individuals will be supported via affordable online or face to face exercise groups. The charity does not offer any one-to-one ongoing treatment sessions.

We host a weekly peer support and education session, on a Wednesday evening: our Neuro Café. the Neuro Café is a place where participants motivate, challenge and encourage each other. It is filled with laughter and has become a really enjoyable part of our week.

Individuals can refer themselves to the charity or they can be referred by a health care professional, family member or carer. To join, complete the Contact Form on the website and we will get in touch to discuss the next steps.

Courses from Neuro Heroes

Neuro Heroes runs online physio-led exercise sessions for small groups to help them meet condition specific exercise guidelines and get active with expert support. Our six session CP Empower course is designed to get you moving and learn all you need to know about the benefits of exercise whilst living with Cerebral Palsy. Each week our Highly Specialist Neurological Physiotherapist has designed a class focused on exercises tailored to areas that can be problematic as you age with CP.

The course is designed for mixed abilities, and exercises will be adapted to your needs. Weekly CP Empower workouts and handouts will leave you inspired, positive and self-confident to continue exercising as you move forward to live well with Cerebral Palsy.

Read more about the CP Empower course, and book here for the six week course (£85).

Email if you have questions, or are unsure if the course is for you:

You might also be interested in:
Neuro Enhance
Monday 12.30-13.30
£15 a session pay as you go, discounts with block bookings and Neuro Heroes membership
Book here

Lack of specialist physiotherapy services for adults with CP – a co-production animation

Adults with cerebral palsy, researchers, healthcare professionals and a professional animator worked together to coproduce this short film.

The animation (below) summarises the key findings from two published research studies about access to specialist adult physiotherapy services for adults with cerebral palsy in the UK and Ireland.

The research findings call for improvements in policy and physiotherapy services to meet the needs of adults with cerebral palsy throughout their lives.

The purpose of the animation is to provide clear and accessible key messages, and to maximise the impact of the research.

The team aims to widely disseminate the 2-minute animation to reach and influence policy makers and those who design health and care services.