An Interesting Read During COVID-19

Fitness Versus Health

I found this post from the Baguio Running Wall. Reposting this here since this is an interesting read during these times that all are required to be indoor. Running and jogging outsider are not even permitted by the LGU.

The article below and the image above are credited to the Cordillera Conservation Trust.

We are seeing a lot of people training at home these days. While it is a good thing to stay fit there is a difference between training for performance and exercise for health. As athletes we are always pushing ourselves harder to achieve peak performance breaking our bodies down and building them up again stronger. While this is completely fine to do during normal times, we are not in normal times and pushing yourselves for performance gain also lowers your immune response as your body needs to cope with the damage that you are doing to it in training. The goal for this period is to increase the strength of your immune system and that is done through more moderate exercise rather than training for performance goals.

Performance is NOT health. Run faster and longer, punch harder, kick further, hit cleaner, climb faster, cycle longer, jump higher, grow bigger muscles – make your body do extraordinary things in the name of increased performance. A healthy body does not need to do extraordinary things.

So we have a few recommendations to keep yourself both active and also your immune system in top shape while in quarantine:

1. MODERATE to LIGHT Exercise only. -You should aim for 1 hour of exercise a day and should refrain from doing anything longer than 2 hours.

2. Fuel: This is not training so there is no need to stress your system by doing fasted exercise. Fuel before, during, and after exercise to minimize stress to your system.

3. Focus on lower impact exercise such as Yoga, Indoor Cycling, Pilates, Swimming, body weight strength training, etc…

4. Don’t feel the need to progress your workouts from easy to hard. It is perfectly ok to repeat easy workouts. Aim instead to perfect your form and do movements better than aiming for longer and harder workouts.

5. Variety is important; run, bike, yoga, pilates do different movements and make your exercise wholistic for your whole body.

6. If your situation allows you exercise in direct sunlight. The blue wavelength in sunlight activates your T-Cells motility making them much more agile in finding and targeting infections. It also boosts Vitamin D production. (Aim for no more than 1 hour of sunlight to avoid sunburns)

7. Eat whole foods -eating whole foods rather than processed food will not only give you the necessary nutrients to boost your immune system it will also decrease body inflammation. Aim for anti-inflammation food such as leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables, beans, nuts, and unprocessed meat. Lowering your bodies inflammation frees up its resources to fight infections.

8. Take time to rest -the quarantine gives us unlimited amount of time and there is a risk of actually doing too much because we can actually exercise as much as we want. Take it easy, read books, watch movies rest is important.

You will be burning less calories but we assure you that your health will benefit from this. Let’s all tow the line for the health of the community.

Keep Healthy and Keep it Wild.

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