Charles Meadows knew his painful leg cramps meant something was wrong.
"I could walk maybe a block then I had to stop and rest and I knew this is not normal," he says.
His doctor diagnosed him with peripheral arterial disease, or blockages in the arteries that reduces blood flow to the legs.
Soon after, he enrolled in a study examining whether supervised exercise could improve the walking performance of patients with the condition.
"The patients in the study were assigned by chance to one of three groups, one being the supervised treadmill exercise, one being the leg strengthening with a trainer and the third being a control group that did not get any exercise," explains Northwestern University's Dr. Mary McDermott.
The study appears this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and was the first of its kind to include patients both with and without blockages in the arteries in their legs.
"Patients with Peripheral Arterial Disease, even when they don't have classic symptoms, still have significant impairment in their functional performance and an increased rate of functional decline over time," says Dr. McDermott.
After six months, patients in the treadmill exercise group improved their walking ability significantly, both off and on the treadmill. They also saw improvements in their quality of life and overall cardiovascular health.
Patients in the leg strengthening group improved their treadmill walking endurance, their reported ability to climb stairs and also their quality of life.
"The study clearly demonstrates that patients with Peripheral Arterial Disease whether or not they have the classic symptoms of intermittent claudicating benefit from supervised treadmill exercise - and also have some benefit from resistance training of the legs," Dr. McDermott says.
That's good news for people like Charles.
"I was able to walk with less pain and I felt better!" he says. "All around I felt better."
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Dr. Rhonda Low
