Hello, I signed up in December 2021 I believe, and I enjoyed using the different levels of PD workouts, some yoga and tai chi. Unfortunately in January of 2022 I experienced some weight loss (about 10 pounds from 150 down to about 140) and I was taking a high dose of levadopa. As a result of the weakness I experienced, I was dealing with having tremors about 7-9 hours per day. Whenever I tried to do a workout, a tremor would break out after about 15 minutes causing me to quit the workout soon after. Have you had patients/clients with problems with tremors during workouts?

I have been recently trying to get back into the workouts. Do you have any suggestions about classes that would help me to deal with my tremors and get back into workouts? I need to produce more dopamine with exercise.

Michael Espey

Hi Michael and Nicoletta,

I have had a couple of people ask this question about exercise and tremors. I have reached out to Miriam Rafferty, PHD who does a lot of research in PD. She, as well, has only had a couple of patients who get more tremor with exercise. The answer with a couple of patients has been to increase meds but it sounds like you are already on high dose Levodopa so this might not be the answer. In other patients, building strength and endurance tended to make the tremors more manageable over time. In your case, with weight loss and and weakness, I imagine that building back strength and endurance might make the symptoms more manageable. This will take time. There is not a physiological rationale for this increase in tremor other than that maybe the nervous system gets more excited with exercise and that should be a temporary response... not something that causes permanent progression of symptoms.

I would advocate for you to continue with exercise and try to stay consistent with it, even if it means short term increase in tremors. I would start back with Tai Chi and Yoga and consider adding in our Starter Series or ChairFit for some strength. If you can build more endurance and strength, then my hope is the tremors might resolve a bit. Keep in mind it takes 6-8 weeks to build strength and endurance can be a slow process so be patient.

I hope this helps and let me know how you are doing as time goes by.

All the best,
Nate