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Dear Alan, Thanks for the reply to my comments. Glad someone out there is taking the time to respond. The current thinking in PT is that rigidity MAY be worsened with strength training. There have been no studies to validate this HYPOTHESIS. To me it seems almost like a tradeoff between the benefits of exercise and the drawbacks of exercise. Strength training will increase strength in PD (not published yet) and this may help to prevent falling or , at least, greatly decrease the odds of falling. Strength training may also increase rigidity. I'd like to know if it does! And I'm sure so would many other people. The problem with the PT's is that they are conservative in their interpretation of western medicine and they do not easily experiment with new ways of viewing a solution to a problem. In my opinion, PD is not just a CNS condition, but also a problem that has to do with the peripheral systems. We know very well that athletes who train with weights can produce a great period of muscular relaxation following a workout. Maybe this will also work for PD persons...relaxation following a hard workout. PD has been called the "falling sickness". The ability to control balance is, in part, also due to muscle strength. The more strength an individual has the greater corrections can be made and the less errors are made (where an error = a fall). Healthy fallers have marked losses in ankle strength, and knee flexion and extension strength. Persons with PD also show reductions in strength as compared to age-matched healthy persons. Persons with Pd are not as accurate at making judgements of their postural sway, perceiving smaller limits of stability than their actual stability limits. It remains to be seen to what extent persons with PD can benefit from strength training and to what extent balance can be altered through strength training. It seems that persons who remain active throughout their PD outlive persons who are sedentary. The type and quantity of activity necessary to sustain a high-quality life, independent and autonomous, remains to be seen. Unfortunately only 8% of all adults exercise on a regular basis. The percentage of persons with PD who exercise on a regular basis must thus be immeasurably small. --