Product Description

Labeled "the mystery malady of the 1990s," chronic fatigue accounts for millions of visits to the doctor each year--yet many more people with the condition never seek medical help. If you have chronic fatigue this book is for you!

In Chronic Fatigue: Your Complete Exercise Guide, you will find a clear description of chronic fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome, essentials on designing an exercise program to fit your capabilities, guidelines for safe exercise, four complete exercise programs, and a unique Health Points System to help you maintain motivation and gauge your progress.

Chronic Fatigue: Your Complete Exercise Guide offers a safe and effective exercise program that sets you on a lifelong course of reduced fatigue and improved health. Use it as a basis for discussion with your doctor and as a guide to help you work moderate exercise into your daily routine.

This book is part of The Cooper Clinic and Research Institute Fitness Series--the first series that provides a complete and sensible exercise program to overcome or reduce a chronic medical condition. Other topics in the series include arthritis, diabetes, breathing disorders, and stroke. Dr. Neil F. Gordon, the series author, is widely regarded as a leading medical authority on exercise and health. He is the director of exercise physiology at the internationally renowned Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas, Texas.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #400213 in Books
• Published on: 1992-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 130 pages

From the Publisher
"This is a well-written, easily understood textbook from the Cooper Clinic and Research Institute Fitness Series. . . this book would be an excellent reference source for anyone who has been diagnosed with CFS or is prescribing exercise for someone who has CFS."

Indiana AHPERD Journal

"For those that have Chronic Fatigue and nothing has helped or who have made very little progress toward recovery, this book offers great promise".

Fred Nelson Director National Foundation for the Chemically Hypersensitive

"Dr. Gordon is to be congratulated for writing Chronic Fatigue: Your Complete Exercise Guide. This complex and poorly understood health problem cuases a great deal of disability and markedly reduces the quality of life for millions of people. . .. The sensible exercise program outlined by Dr. Gordon can help stabilize or reverse this downward spiral, and can restore some function for many patients. Much remains to be learned about chronic fatigue syndrome, and the type and amount of physical activity that is most beneficial. Dr. Gordon's book is an excellent set of guidelines that can be applied now to help these patients."

Steven N. Blair, PED Director of Epidemiology Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research

About the Author
Dr. Neil F. Gordon is widely regarded as a leading medical authority on exercise and health. Before receiving his master's degree in public health from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1989, Dr. Gordon received doctoral degrees in exercise physiology and medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He also served as medical director of cardiac rehabilitation and exercise physiology for 6 years at I Military Hospital in Pretoria, South Africa.

Since 1987, Dr. Gordon has been the director of exercise physiology at the internationally reknowned Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas, Texas. He has also written over 50 papers on exercise and medicine. Dr. Gordon is also coauthor of the book Don't Count Yourself Out: Staying Fit after Thirty-Five with Jimmy Connors.

Dr. Gordon is a member of the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association. He is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation (AACVPR). He also has served on the board of directors for AACVPR, the Texas Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation, and the American Heart Association (Dallas affiliate).

Customer Reviews

Very definitely NOT for people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
If you have been diagnosed with CFS--aka CFIDS (Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome) or ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis)--by a competent medical professional, don't even think of reading this book. On page three, the author states that "CFS is simply a chronic, unexplained fatigue that a person has had for more than 30 days." This definition not only flies in the face of the CDC criteria (six months of unexplained fatigue along with a host of other symptoms), it creates a veritable diagnostic nightmare. A gazillion things can cause a person to feel tired for a month. And if, in fact, it turns out that you really do have CFS, the advice given by Dr. Gordon to "fight back" with exercise will most assuredly make you worse.

One of the hallmark symptoms of CFS is exercise intolerance. In short, if you exercise you will feel much worse, usually within 24 hours. Not only will you feel worse, you will get worse. Why? Because, like polio, the cause for the fatigue is the disease process itself. According to Dr. Paul Cheney, one of the world's leading experts on CFS, people with this illness have a cellular defect at the mitochondrial level which leads to a deficit in ATP production. The result of this deficit is post-exercise exhaustion, malaise, and a general worsening of all symptoms. Cells which have spent their energy on exercise (among other things) simply can't recuperate. People with CFS are literally "running on empty."

If you don't have CFS then this book might do you some good. Otherwise, follow the advice given by bona fide CFS experts, and REST.