 [ Symptoms ] why is exercise important for fibromyalgia [ Disease ] experts believe that exercise is essential for keeping muscles strong and flexible controlling weight and helping you stay active in other areas of life in fact exercise and activity allow patients to have some control over fibromyalgia and the amount of pain they feel it used to be that doctors thought that exercise might worsen fibromyalgia symptoms or accelerate the disease so doctors encouraged patients to seek rest not activity but recent scientific studies have shown that for most patients range of motion strengthening and aerobic conditioning exercises are safe and necessary