To Mask Or Not During Exercise?

"Our findings are of importance because they indicate that people can wear face masks during intense exercise with no detrimental effects on performance and minimal impact on blood and muscle oxygenation."

"This is important when fitness centres open up during COVID-19 since respiratory droplets may be propelled further with heavy breathing during vigorous exercise and because of reports of COVID-19 clusters in crowded enclosed exercise facilities."

University of Saskatchewan researchers 

"If people wear face masks during indoor exercise, it might make the sessions safer and allow gyms to stay open during COVID."

"It might also allow sports to continue, including hockey, where transmission of COVID-19 appears to be high."

"Usually a participant reaches exhaustion on this test in six to 12 minutes depending on their fitness level."

Dr. Phil Chilibeck (PhD), professor, USask College of Kinesiology, study co-author 

A small Canadian study from the University of Saskatchewan has found that face masks do not hinder breathing for some healthy individuals during even “vigorous” exercise. University of Saskatchewan, College of Medicine

The World Health Organization is quite clear in its direction over exercise and masking; according to their experts, exercisers would do best to avoid wearing masks while working out since masks, they claim, make it more difficult to breathe and the moisture that is generated from perspiration along with an increase in exercise-generated respiration will result in the mask fabric becoming wet and playing  host to a wide range of micro-organisms.

That advice has resonated with most regional and national public health authorities which also recommend against mask-wearing when exercising. As always within scientific circles there are dissenting opinions. A team of researchers out of the University of Saskatchewan, and two sports medicine experts from the University of Pretoria in South Africa make their own claims, that masks should be worn while engaged in indoor exercising, where others are in near proximity.

The goal of the Canadian research was to investigate how much a mask could affect exercise performance, and to that end they had seven men and seven women exercise on three days, alternating between wearing a three-layer cloth mask and no mask being worn. Warming up on a stationary bike before increasing resistance every two minutes while cycling at 70 to 74 revolutions per minute until they no longer were able to maintain the pedal rate, the length of each exercise withheld to avoid influencing the workout outcome, exercisers reported no difference in exertion that they were aware of regardless of mask-type used.

 

Time to exhaustion, heart rate and oxygen delivery to the working muscles remained consistent in all three exercise trials, whether or not a mask was worn, affirmed the objective physiological findings. Acknowledging these findings to be contrary to previous studies which reported exercising with a mask decreased oxygen uptake and facilitated the rebreathing of expired carbon dioxide, the researchers noted that hospital-grade N95 masks had been used for those studies, similar to masks used by health-care workers.

 

The masks the University of Saskatchewan study used, on the other hand, were constructed of cloth, similar to those worn by the general public. Disposable surgical masks were also used. 

 

In a British Journal of Sports Medicine blog post and an opinion piece published in the South African Journal of Sports Medicine, Jessica Hamuy Blanco and Christa Janse van Rensburg from the faculty of health sciences, University of Pretoria, emphasize that mask wearing while exercising at a gym is a vital factor in reducing virus transmission. Comfort, breathability and infection control are recognized by the two experts as the hallmark of a good mask to be used in the gym. They recommend two-layer cotton masks as opposed to the three-layer models, pointing out that one layer less results in easier breathing, avoiding the feeling of claustrophobia, the common early reaction to exercising with the mouth covered by a piece of fabric.

Relaxed breathability also reduces buildup of heat around the mask that tends to occur as exercise intensity increases, even while maintaining a protective barrier against virus transmission. Some of the more lightweight, breathable synthetic masks available prove to be less effective in containing expired respiratory droplets; the major function of mask-wearing. "There is  unfortunately an inverse relationship between protection and breathability with regard to the wearing of masks while exercising", cautioned the two South Africans.

Researchers Hamuy Blanco and Janse van Rensburg recommend further, taking along a second, even a third mask to the gym, to enable one to change to a dry mask if and as required, since a wet mask makes it more difficult to breathe, and makes the cloth barrier less effective at mitigating t he release of respiratory droplets into the air.

A new mandatory mask rule takes effect for indoor public spaces in Prince Albert, Saskatoon and Regina, Sask. on Friday. People exercising are exempt. (New World Fitness website)