Temperatures are slowly, but surely warming as we inch closer to summer. That means a lot of people are heading outdoors and restarting those workout routines. Katie Smith, manager for clinical operations for SSM Health Sports Medicine, urges everyone to make sure they ramp up the activity the right way.
Q: As we return to more outdoor activities, what should we keep in mind?
A: It’s important to understand your goals and the type of activity to which you’re returning. Are you returning to a specific activity you were doing before, or are you trying to be more active in general? Knowing that, helps you set realistic goals and avoid setbacks that lead us to give up.
If the goal is just to be active after being sedentary, then taking a walk three times per week is a fantastic goal. Set a goal to walk for x number of minutes, and then stick to that goal for three or four weeks consistently. Then, start to incrementally increase your activity.
Let’s say you want to improve your golf goal, then you have to tailor your activity to get your body prepared for that activity. Start with the driving range and one bucket of balls. Then, slowly increase that activity, add in a little cardio and maybe a little work on your shoulders. That way, we’re increasing our bodies endurance to do those activities.
Q: How important is it to our overall health to be get active and stay active?
A: We know that sixty minutes of any physical activity a day makes a huge difference in comorbidities. Comorbidities are a mix of factors that increase our chances of death in many areas. They are things like high blood pressure, heart disease and variables like that. Anything we do to decrease those morbidities is a win for our health. It’s important to remember any activity that increases your cardiovascular activity will decrease those comorbidities.
You don’t have to run a marathon to be active. Things like walking a dog, swimming or lifting in the gym can all have a positive effect.
Q: Are previous COVID-19 infections affecting how people return to their pre-COVID levels of activity?
We know that long COVID or chronic-fatigue COVID, is very much a syndrome that occurs for individuals who weren’t hospitalized or maybe weren’t even that sick when they had COVID. What happens to a lot of individuals who were active pre-COVID, they are having difficulty getting back to the same level of activity after their infection. They’ll have success for a time, and they seem to plateau.
I would say this is actually more frequent than we thought it would be. It also seems to be more frequent in areas where athletes spend more time outside, as things like humidity and allergens add complications.
So, we’ve changed our program a little for those individuals. We’ll slowly increase cardiovascular fitness in a very controlled manner, and perhaps work with their primary care physicians to utilize inhalers and things like that to help with their pulmonary function. There are ways to overcome that, and individuals should not be afraid of getting back to their pre-COVID activity level. If they are finding that they are reaching a plateau, they should work with their primary care provider or work with our SSM Health Sports Medicine service.
Katie Smith answered these questions and more in a segment called Four Your Information. See the rest of Katie’s conversation here on Facebook.
