One of the joys of this summer is putting our boat Manuella back into the water. For various reasons we have not been able to sail for several years and she has been languishing in storage. But now she is sitting in all her glory tied to a floating dock at a marina close to our house in Maine
Sailing is a great sport for one who suffers from POTS (postural tachycardia syndrome). I have always loved sailing but in my mountain climbing days I disparaged it for being too sedentary. That doesn’t matter to me anymore. Now it is a plus to me that sailing does not demand a lot of upright posture. Instead there is a lot of sitting, squatting, short bouts of climbing and the occasional opportunity to lie down and rest. And the sitting that is involved is not necessarily inert. It involves a lot of core muscle tension and subtle exercise as one maneuvers around in sailing activities. In addition there is the aerobic exercise of rowing out to the boat and back in the dingy where one can maintain the advantageous recumbent posture. Just the right kind of exercise for a sufferer of POTS.
