Aquatic Exercise Improves Some Symptoms in Long Covid
Many long covid patients have issues related to balance and the way they walk. A recent study provided evidence that an aquatic exercise program can lead to moderate improvement in posture, gait, exercise tolerance, depressive mood scores, and microcirculation.
“Can aquatic exercises contribute to the improvement of the gait stereotype function in patients with Long COVID outcomes?” European Journal of Translational Myology, 14 Jul 2022, PMID 35833897.
No real surprises here. People who have a chronic disease or disability can lose muscle function and balance over time, and exercise programs can often counteract those losses.
While many types of exercise will do the trick, aquatic exercises may have a number of advantages over standard, land-based exercise programs. First, if a person has balance or strength issues, being in water might make the exercises easier or safer. Second, the water can exert significant pressure on the legs - it can act like compression stockings and keep blood from pooling in the lower extremities … this makes exercise more tolerable for many people, especially those with POTS. (And POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia) is much more common in people with long covid.) Water offers different resistance than air for many muscle groups, and can be thought of as a type of ‘cross-training.’ And the temperature of pool water can have an effect on the circulation in the skin that is not seen in ordinary exercise programs.
The word ‘moderate’ bears repeating. The increased 6 minute walking distance seen by the aquatic exercise group was only a few meters more than the control group - but it was a statistically significant difference … ie, the analysis tells us it is likely a real improvement and not just a sampling error or a fluke. Many of the improvements came in at a p=0.04. That might be due to the small sample sizes of the study; it might be something that we can ignore. But it may indicate that it is not a super-sharp distinction between the exercise group and the control group - it raises some questions about certainty.
But the Bottom Line is clear: exercise and physical activity have multiple benefits for the human organism. Exercise doesn’t have to be done in water. But aquatics may make it easier, more enjoyable, and maybe even more effective.