Maintaining Your Workouts Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic
by Melinda Burris Willms
As people are being encouraged not to gather in groups as a way of not contracting or spreading coronavirus, the cause of COVID-19, athletes are wondering how to maintain their workout routines. This article begins with the basics of what coronavirus is, how it is spread, and how you can continue your training regimen and still stay safe while local and federal health authorities get a grasp on containing this threat to public health and safety.
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What is Coronavirus?
Coronavirus does not actually refer to a singular virus but rather to a large group of viruses. Some of these types of viruses affect only people, while others are canine or feline varieties and only cause illness in animals. On infrequent occasions, the animal variety of corona virus has infected humans and gone on to spread between individuals. This is what experts believe has occurred in the current outbreak of the type of coronavirus that triggers COVID-19.[1]
How the Virus Spreads
This incarnation of coronavirus was initially identified in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, its origins associated with a live animal market located there. Now, the virus is reported to be community spread. This term means the disease is easily spread from person-to-person within a geographic area with individuals becoming infected after coming into contact with other people who have the disease, often without ever realizing they have interacted with a person who is sick.1 When a disease is easily spread on a continuum among individuals who do not realize they are sick or that they are interacting with others who are ill, it becomes extremely difficult to eradicate. This is the situation public health officials now face in trying to stop this version of coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Protecting Yourself While Maintaining Your Workout
Given the situation, should you skip the gym until the outbreak is contained? According to Dr. Michael Ison, a physician specializing in infectious disease at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, if you are young and healthy, exhibiting no symptoms of the illness yourself, and do not live in an area that is particularly hard hit with verified cases of coronavirus, you can safely continue your gym routine. Dr. Ison does recommend hyper-vigilance in your gym hygiene, however. For instance, it is common human behavior to wipe your nose and face to remove sweat and then touch workout equipment again. This type of touch contamination would easily spread any virus.[2]
Those who are in demographics that have been identified as being at high risk for developing complications from COVID-19 include adults past the age of 60 and individuals who have underlying medical conditions that comprise their immune systems. If you fall into one of these two categories, it may be safer for you to avoid the public gym and work out at your home gym instead.[2]
Key Precautions and Safeguards Experts Recommend to Minimize Your Exposure to Coronavirus
- Wash your hands frequently.[1]
- When washing your hands, you need to use soap and water and wash for a minimum of 20 seconds, particularly when you’ve been out in public or after having blown your nose, sneezing, or coughing.[1]
- If you choose to go to the gym for a workout, wash your hands thoroughly before and after your training session.[2]
- If you do not have access to soap and water, use hand sanitizer comprised of a minimum of 60% alcohol. Be sure the sanitizer is spread across the entire surface of both hands and continue rubbing both together until they are dry.[1]
- Be extra vigilant about wiping down all equipment you use prior to and after working out.
- Maintain your safe “social distance.” This is a term you will hear repeatedly when any professional discusses how to avoid contracting coronavirus. Your safe social distance will depend on your personal likelihood of exposure and how likely you are to suffer complications should you contract the disease. If you are young and healthy and do not have an underlying condition, experts recommend you maintain a social distance of six feet from other individuals—even family members. If you are older (over the age of 60), have an underlying health condition, or live in an area that is particularly hard hit with a large number of coronavirus cases, you may want to self-isolate by staying at home as much as possible for the next 2-3 weeks.[1]
- Try not to touch the eyes, mouth, or nose with hands that are not washed.[1]
- Keep your distance from those who are sick. If you are sick, stay home and isolate yourself from others.[1]
These measures emphasizing hygiene and keeping your distance from others are so important because the illness is spread through respiratory droplets that are created and spread when an infected individual sneezes or coughs. People in close proximity to the sick person can inhale these respiratory droplets or they can simply land in the noses or mouths of individuals nearby and the disease is spread.[1]
At this point, no vaccine has yet been developed that can prevent this strain of coronavirus.[1] However, whether you decide to continue going to your nearby gym or fitness studio or you decide to workout at home for the next few weeks, by combining common sense personal hygiene and keeping a safe “social distance” from others as you go about your workout, you can maintain your health and your fitness routine.
References
- CDC. (2020). Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).
- Pawlowski, A. (13 March 2020). Coronavirus Spreads, is it Safe to Go to the Gym?
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