Hi BBM,
I’m an Exercise Physiologist and currently work with several clients living with Parkinson’s Disease. I’m curious to know if you’ve come across the PD Warrior program and whether you’d recommend using it with any of your clients to help manage PD related symptoms?
Some of my colleagues swear by it, claiming it’s the best thing since sliced bread, but I’m a little skeptical. While I understand it focuses on high intensity, neuroplasticity based movement, I feel there might be more benefit in focusing on full-body strength training, falls prevention, and general resistance training to support quality of life and independence. (I might be a bit bias here).
Have you come across any good research on PD Warrior specifically, or do you lean more toward broader, evidence based approaches to exercise in PD?
Also, would love to hear a podcast episode on PD, maybe featuring the second most handsome doctor in North America!
Cheers,
Haydon
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Hey there – interesting question!
I had not previously heard of this particular program. Looking into it briefly, there does appear to be one small pilot study from last year that suggested favorable results. However, there does not appear to be any comparative literature between something like this program and a more traditional S&C approach.
As a result, we can’t make confident claims here about which might have more efficacy - and honestly, I don’t have strong reason to believe that one would be drastically more effective than the other.
Looking at the PD Warrior website, I think that an even bigger factor may be the community/motivational aspect, professional guidance/contact time, in addition to the high(er) intensity exercise. To the extent someone is able to replicate those aspects using a different programming approach with similar exercise volumes & intensities, I’d probably expect roughly similar results. Happy to be proven wrong here, of course, but that would need a quality comparative trial.
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