Training With Rheumatoid Arthritis: What It Actually Looks Like
A Rheumatic Disease Awareness Month guide from Alloy Personal Training in Overland Park, Kansas
If you have rheumatoid arthritis, you have already been told to exercise. Your rheumatologist said it. The pamphlet said it. The internet has said it roughly hundreds of times.
What nobody tells you is what to do on the Tuesday your hands won't close. That gap is the whole problem. September is Rheumatic Disease Awareness Month, and the messaging that comes with it is almost entirely about whether to move. The harder question, the one people actually get stuck on, is what happens to a training program when your capacity changes without warning and without permission.
Most gyms handle this badly. Not out of carelessness. The standard model just has one setting, and that setting is more. More weight, more reps, more intensity than last week. That works fine until your body stops cooperating on a schedule nobody can predict, at which point the whole system quietly tells you that you're failing.
Chris Reid is General Manager and Director of Training at Alloy Personal Training in Overland Park, Kansas. He holds a Master's degree in Sport and Exercise Psychology from the University of Kansas. We asked him the five questions members ask before they ever book a session.
*One thing to be clear about first. Alloy's coaches are certified personal trainers holding credentials from organizations including NASM, ACE, and ACSM. They are not clinicians, and they don't pretend to be. Members train with clearance from their own physicians. Nothing below is medical advice.
1. What does a workout actually look like when you have rheumatoid arthritis?
More ordinary than most people brace for.
"Having rheumatoid arthritis doesn't automatically mean you need to avoid strength training," Reid says. "It means we need to be more intentional about how we approach it."
The skeleton of the session doesn't change much. Squat, hinge, push, pull, carry, core. Those are the patterns a body needs regardless of diagnosis. What moves is everything underneath: the specific exercise chosen, the load, how far through a range you go, how much you do.
"Someone may feel great one week and have more joint pain, stiffness, or fatigue the next. Our goal is to find what they can do safely and successfully rather than focusing on everything they can't do."
That last phrase is doing more work than it looks like. Plenty of programs written for people with chronic conditions are organized around avoidance, a list of things you're not allowed to touch. That produces a workout defined by absence, which is both demoralizing and not very effective.
And there's no template to hand you. "Because rheumatoid arthritis can affect everyone differently, there really isn't one 'RA workout.' The program needs to fit the individual."
2. What should you tell a personal trainer about your autoimmune condition, and what should you expect back?
Tell them more than feels necessary. Here’s Reid's list:
Which joints tend to give you trouble
What a flare actually feels like for you, in your words
Movements that reliably cause problems
Anything your physician or physical therapist told you to avoid or modify
Prior surgeries and other orthopedic history
Most importantly, communicate when something changes.
Now the part people forget to ask about. You are also evaluating them.
A trainer who nods, says "just listen to your body," and hands you the same session everyone else is doing has told you something useful about the next six months. Listen to your body is not instruction. It's a way of moving the decision back onto you while sounding supportive.
"You shouldn't feel like you're being pushed through the exact same workout as everyone else regardless of how you're feeling. At Alloy, that's a big reason we start with an assessment and continue checking in. If something hurts or your capacity is different that day, we can change the movement, range of motion, load, or even the goal of the session."
The goal of the session. That's the one worth sitting with, because it means the target itself is negotiable, not just the weight on the bar.
The other thing to listen for is where they stop. "If something falls outside our scope as trainers, we want to communicate with or refer back to the client's physician or physical therapist rather than pretending we have all the answers."
A coach who can tell you what they don't handle is more trustworthy than one who handles everything.
3. What do you do on a flare day instead of skipping the gym entirely?
Sometimes you skip it. That's a real answer and it should stay on the table.
"There are absolutely going to be days when rest is appropriate. We're never going to tell someone they have to push through a significant flare just to say they got their workout in”, Reid says.
But the flare isn't usually the thing that derails people. The binary is.
"It also doesn't always have to be 100% or 0%,” he continued.
“Between those poles there's an enormous amount of room. Drop the weight. Shorten the range. Pick movements that route around whichever joints are angry today. Work mobility. Some days it's just getting comfortable movement in and going home.
Sometimes success is walking out of the gym feeling better than when you walked in."
That reframe sounds small, but it isn't. If every session has to be a good session to count, then a bad week erases the habit, and a bad month erases the year. Reid puts the value in what it teaches:
"Learning that a workout can be modified instead of automatically abandoned can be really valuable for someone whose capacity changes from day to day."
4. Why does consistency matter more than intensity when your capacity changes week to week?
The short answer? Nothing you're after comes from a single workout.
"Fitness isn't built from one amazing workout. It's built from what you can do consistently over months and years."
Hold that next to a condition that fluctuates and the math gets unforgiving. An all-out standard may not just make hard weeks harder. It could actually make them disqualified.
"If your definition of a successful workout is always, 'I need to go as hard as possible,' you're going to have a difficult relationship with exercise on the weeks when your body isn't cooperating."
What tends to follow is a cycle most people recognize. Feel good, overdo it. Pay for it. Do nothing for two weeks. Feel guilty. Repeat. It looks like effort and produces almost nothing.
"We'd rather have someone consistently strength training at an appropriate level than bouncing between doing too much when they feel good and doing nothing when they don't. The intensity can change. The habit doesn't necessarily have to."
Reid is careful not to file this under special accommodation. "That's something we preach to all of our clients, not just people with rheumatoid arthritis." Which is the honest version. Nobody's capacity is actually flat. Rheumatoid arthritis just removes the option of pretending otherwise.
5. What equipment is easier on joints, and what should you skip or modify?
There's no clean answer here, according to Reid.
"It depends on which joints are affected and what feels comfortable for that individual."
What helps is having more than one route to the same place. Cables, bands, dumbbells, suspension trainers, machines. Each solves a slightly different problem.
Grip, however, gets overlooked constantly.
"Different handles and neutral grips can also be helpful when gripping a straight bar or putting the wrist into a certain position is uncomfortable. Sometimes simply changing the range of motion or the way someone holds a weight makes a big difference."
Hands and wrists are frequently the limiting factor in rheumatoid arthritis, and a barbell forces one grip position. Swapping the implement can make an exercise available again without touching the exercise itself.
On the banned-movements list people usually want, Reid won't produce one. "I don't love giving people a blanket list of exercises they should never do." His reasoning is practical rather than principled: "If an exercise consistently causes joint pain, we don't get bonus points for forcing it. We change it. There are usually multiple ways to train the same muscle or movement pattern."
Which is precisely what a printed program can't do for you. "The goal of the exercise stays the same, but how we get there can change."
Training with a rheumatic condition in Overland Park
Alloy Personal Training is a small-group personal training studio at 5053 W 119th Street in Overland Park, Kansas, serving Johnson County including Leawood, Prairie Village, and many of the surrounding neighborhoods. Sessions cap at six people per coach. Many members are adults over 40.
Everyone trains on an individualized program with a coach who knows their history, which is the unglamorous reason same-day modification is possible at all. You cannot adjust a session on the fly for someone you're meeting for the first time.
If you have rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, or another rheumatic condition, and your physician has cleared you to exercise, come see what this looks like before deciding anything. The first visit is a free Starting Point Session: you meet a coach, go through a strength and mobility assessment, and talk through your history. No obligation attached.
Call (913) 395-6955 or book below.
September is Rheumatic Disease Awareness Month, a calendar observance designated by the American College of Rheumatology. Alloy Personal Training is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or credentialed through the ACR. This article is general information, not medical advice. Talk with your physician before beginning or changing an exercise program.
Training With Rheumatoid Arthritis: What It Actually Looks Like
A Rheumatic Disease Awareness Month guide from Alloy Personal Training in Overland Park, Kansas
If you have rheumatoid arthritis, you have already been told to exercise. Your rheumatologist said it. The pamphlet said it. The internet has said it roughly hundreds of times.
What nobody tells you is what to do on the Tuesday your hands won't close. That gap is the whole problem. September is Rheumatic Disease Awareness Month, and the messaging that comes with it is almost entirely about whether to move. The harder question, the one people actually get stuck on, is what happens to a training program when your capacity changes without warning and without permission.
Most gyms handle this badly. Not out of carelessness. The standard model just has one setting, and that setting is more. More weight, more reps, more intensity than last week. That works fine until your body stops cooperating on a schedule nobody can predict, at which point the whole system quietly tells you that you're failing.
Chris Reid is General Manager and Director of Training at Alloy Personal Training in Overland Park, Kansas. He holds a Master's degree in Sport and Exercise Psychology from the University of Kansas. We asked him the five questions members ask before they ever book a session.
*One thing to be clear about first. Alloy's coaches are certified personal trainers holding credentials from organizations including NASM, ACE, and ACSM. They are not clinicians, and they don't pretend to be. Members train with clearance from their own physicians. Nothing below is medical advice.
1. What does a workout actually look like when you have rheumatoid arthritis?
More ordinary than most people brace for.
"Having rheumatoid arthritis doesn't automatically mean you need to avoid strength training," Reid says. "It means we need to be more intentional about how we approach it."
The skeleton of the session doesn't change much. Squat, hinge, push, pull, carry, core. Those are the patterns a body needs regardless of diagnosis. What moves is everything underneath: the specific exercise chosen, the load, how far through a range you go, how much you do.
"Someone may feel great one week and have more joint pain, stiffness, or fatigue the next. Our goal is to find what they can do safely and successfully rather than focusing on everything they can't do."
That last phrase is doing more work than it looks like. Plenty of programs written for people with chronic conditions are organized around avoidance, a list of things you're not allowed to touch. That produces a workout defined by absence, which is both demoralizing and not very effective.
And there's no template to hand you. "Because rheumatoid arthritis can affect everyone differently, there really isn't one 'RA workout.' The program needs to fit the individual."
2. What should you tell a personal trainer about your autoimmune condition, and what should you expect back?
Which joints tend to give you trouble
What a flare actually feels like for you, in your words
Movements that reliably cause problems
Anything your physician or physical therapist told you to avoid or modify
Prior surgeries and other orthopedic history
Most importantly, communicate when something changes.
Now the part people forget to ask about. You are also evaluating them.
A trainer who nods, says "just listen to your body," and hands you the same session everyone else is doing has told you something useful about the next six months. Listen to your body is not instruction. It's a way of moving the decision back onto you while sounding supportive.
"You shouldn't feel like you're being pushed through the exact same workout as everyone else regardless of how you're feeling. At Alloy, that's a big reason we start with an assessment and continue checking in. If something hurts or your capacity is different that day, we can change the movement, range of motion, load, or even the goal of the session."
The goal of the session. That's the one worth sitting with, because it means the target itself is negotiable, not just the weight on the bar.
The other thing to listen for is where they stop. "If something falls outside our scope as trainers, we want to communicate with or refer back to the client's physician or physical therapist rather than pretending we have all the answers."
A coach who can tell you what they don't handle is more trustworthy than one who handles everything.
3. What do you do on a flare day instead of skipping the gym entirely?
Sometimes you skip it. That's a real answer and it should stay on the table.
"There are absolutely going to be days when rest is appropriate. We're never going to tell someone they have to push through a significant flare just to say they got their workout in”, Reid says.
But the flare isn't usually the thing that derails people. The binary is.
"It also doesn't always have to be 100% or 0%,” he continued.
“Between those poles there's an enormous amount of room. Drop the weight. Shorten the range. Pick movements that route around whichever joints are angry today. Work mobility. Some days it's just getting comfortable movement in and going home.
Sometimes success is walking out of the gym feeling better than when you walked in."
That reframe sounds small, but it isn't. If every session has to be a good session to count, then a bad week erases the habit, and a bad month erases the year. Reid puts the value in what it teaches:
"Learning that a workout can be modified instead of automatically abandoned can be really valuable for someone whose capacity changes from day to day."
4. Why does consistency matter more than intensity when your capacity changes week to week?
The short answer? Nothing you're after comes from a single workout.
"Fitness isn't built from one amazing workout. It's built from what you can do consistently over months and years."
Hold that next to a condition that fluctuates and the math gets unforgiving. An all-out standard may not just make hard weeks harder. It could actually make them disqualified.
"If your definition of a successful workout is always, 'I need to go as hard as possible,' you're going to have a difficult relationship with exercise on the weeks when your body isn't cooperating."
What tends to follow is a cycle most people recognize. Feel good, overdo it. Pay for it. Do nothing for two weeks. Feel guilty. Repeat. It looks like effort and produces almost nothing.
"We'd rather have someone consistently strength training at an appropriate level than bouncing between doing too much when they feel good and doing nothing when they don't. The intensity can change. The habit doesn't necessarily have to."
Reid is careful not to file this under special accommodation. "That's something we preach to all of our clients, not just people with rheumatoid arthritis." Which is the honest version. Nobody's capacity is actually flat. Rheumatoid arthritis just removes the option of pretending otherwise.
5. What equipment is easier on joints, and what should you skip or modify?
There's no clean answer here, according to Reid.
"It depends on which joints are affected and what feels comfortable for that individual."
What helps is having more than one route to the same place. Cables, bands, dumbbells, suspension trainers, machines. Each solves a slightly different problem.
Grip, however, gets overlooked constantly.
"Different handles and neutral grips can also be helpful when gripping a straight bar or putting the wrist into a certain position is uncomfortable. Sometimes simply changing the range of motion or the way someone holds a weight makes a big difference."
Hands and wrists are frequently the limiting factor in rheumatoid arthritis, and a barbell forces one grip position. Swapping the implement can make an exercise available again without touching the exercise itself.
On the banned-movements list people usually want, Reid won't produce one. "I don't love giving people a blanket list of exercises they should never do." His reasoning is practical rather than principled: "If an exercise consistently causes joint pain, we don't get bonus points for forcing it. We change it. There are usually multiple ways to train the same muscle or movement pattern."
Which is precisely what a printed program can't do for you. "The goal of the exercise stays the same, but how we get there can change."
Training with a rheumatic condition in Overland Park
Alloy Personal Training is a small-group personal training studio at 5053 W 119th Street in Overland Park, Kansas, serving Johnson County including Leawood, Prairie Village, and many of the surrounding neighborhoods. Sessions cap at six people per coach. Many members are adults over 40.
Everyone trains on an individualized program with a coach who knows their history, which is the unglamorous reason same-day modification is possible at all. You cannot adjust a session on the fly for someone you're meeting for the first time.
If you have rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, or another rheumatic condition, and your physician has cleared you to exercise, come see what this looks like before deciding anything. The first visit is a free Starting Point Session: you meet a coach, go through a strength and mobility assessment, and talk through your history. No obligation attached.
Call (913) 395-6955 or book below.
September is Rheumatic Disease Awareness Month, a calendar observance designated by the American College of Rheumatology. Alloy Personal Training is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or credentialed through the ACR. This article is general information, not medical advice. Talk with your physician before beginning or changing an exercise program.
