What exercises work best for fat loss in someone with peripheral vascular disease? I’m a certified personal trainer who had a client with PVD who wanted to lose weight.
The information in this article is based on my experience with this clinically obese client, who was diagnosed with peripheral vascular disease, even though she was only 29.
However, due to the peripheral vascular disease, she found it painful to walk. She reported that most of the pain came from the bottom of her feet. Her gait was unsteady, tentative, and appeared as though she could easily be pushed over.
She pointed to pink spots on her calves and near her feet that looked like mosquito bites, and said they were blood clots. She was a smoker and on Coumadin.
Best exercises for peripheral vascular disease for fat loss
Despite all these negatives, there had to be some safe exercises to help her lose fat. I made sure that her doctor gave her clearance to exercise. There were no restrictions in this area other than her subjective report of pain.
Thus, I had this client, peripheral vascular disease and all, perform the same fat loss exercises I had my healthy clients doing. The only difference is that I didn’t want her doing anything that caused pain. However, she was a trooper and told me she was willing to put up with some pain; she wanted to lose fat.
Best fat loss cardio for peripheral vascular disease
For cardio, I had her do high intensity interval training on a stationary bike, which she said didn’t hurt at all. She blasted away on the 30-second work intervals.
Best strength training fat loss exercise for peripheral vascular disease
For strength training, there were no limits except that squats, deadlifts and lunges were out of the question, since any weight-bearing on her feet was painful. Thus, I had her do heavy leg presses, and I mean heavy, down to a 90-degree knee bend.
Despite peripheral vascular disease, she was able to perform heavy leg presses, and moderate-weight but intense leg extensions and leg curls.
Her upper body wasn’t that strong, but performance is not the key to fat loss. The key to fat loss is pushing through with an individual’s greatest effort. This woman’s greatest effort, for eight reps on the seated chest press machine, was 70 pounds. Though this isn’t heavy to a trained woman, it WAS heavy to this client, and thus, provoked a fat loss response in her body.
I also had her do heavy lat pull-downs (again, heavy is relative), seated rows and shoulder presses.
Within a few months there was a noticeable weight loss, especially in her middle. This was not from dieting. I took her word for it when she initially reported that she ate sensibly, but that the mobility impairments of peripheral vascular disease made her gain fat.
If you have peripheral vascular disease, ask your doctor if there are exercises that would be harmful (not painful, but harmful; there is a difference). Then do high intensity interval training on a stationary bike, and lift heavy weights including the leg press if the pain is tolerable. The best exercises are those done with intensity and heavy weight.