BACKGROUND: Exercise therapy as a rehabilitation measure in neuromuscular diseases was controversially discussed for many years. Since current studies could not detect muscle damages after physical strain in heterogeneous clinical pictures, the evidence of positive effects is limited. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this article is to study the effects of sports in adults with myopathies and diseases of the neuromuscular junction and to find out whether the evidence can be clearly confirmed with high quality primary research studies. METHODS: The research was conducted in the database of PEDro, PubMed (Medline), Deutsches Arzteblatt, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. An additional literature research was undertaken by screening reference lists of the articles. The evaluation of the methodological quality of studies was performed with the PEDro-scale. RESULTS: Overall six RCTs (PEDro-score between 5 to 8) could be included. There were differences regarding the type of training and/or the examined clinical pictures. Significant training-induced improvements could only be demonstrated to a limited extent. Negative effects were not observed in the studies. CONCLUSION: Exercise therapy can be considered as a safe complementary treatment and rehabilitation measure, which can also be integrated in a physiotherapeutic concept. According to the literature available no general training recommendation with respect to a neuromuscular disease can be made in daily clinical practice. In advising such patients appropriate analogies can be applied and integrated in the individual training program.

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