General Exercise Guidelines

If you currently do very little physical activity or exercise you should start by increasing everyday activities. This will help to improve your health, increase your energy output and therefore help weight management.

Consider some of the following ideas:

  • Gardening
  • Cleaning and other household chores
  • DIY
  • Walk to work or to the shops rather than getting in the car
  • Washing the car
  • Jogging around a local park or trail
  • Playing games with family members
  • Dancing
  • Consider volunteering for a local organisation, charity or sports club.

Do what you can and take breaks when you need to. Once you have built up your basic fitness you can consider progressing to some planned exercise sessions.

An exercise session normally consists of three parts: a warm-up, the main session and a cool-down.

An effective warm-up is designed to prepare your body for exercise.

  • 5-10 minutes low to moderate intensity exercise will raise your heart rate and increase your muscle temperature.
  • Gradually increase the intensity of exercise to that of which you will be training or competing.
  • Try to include the movements that you will use during the activity you are warming up for.

In the initial stages of your programme, it is important that you choose an activity you find enjoyable. Do what you can and build on it to prevent your arm or leg amputation becoming sore.

Work towards achieving the recommended 30 minutes for moderate intensity exercise (you should be able to have a conversation), or 20 minutes for vigorous intensity exercise (you can’t say more than a few words without pausing for breath).

The type of exercise you do will vary and may depend on the level of your amputation but the duration and/ or intensity should gradually increase as your fitness develops.

A cool-down usually consists of:

  • 5-10 minutes gentle exercise/activities which gradually decrease large muscle group activity and help to aid the clearance of waste products.
  • Stretching exercises for multiple joints/muscle groups.
  • The cool-down is also a good time to reflect on your session.