Working out outside can be hazardous to your health. Air pollution can bring on asthma, allergies, even heart disease. Kenneth Rundell, director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Marywood University, and an expert in sports medicine, tells us about the dangers of outdoor exercise and how to minimize them.
Comments [7]
I have heard that the bricks and masonry in apartment building "filter" the air, so that the air can be cleaner inside the apartment than outside. That's why I always do my exercising on a machine inside the apartment...with plenty of towels too.
I should also say that for the first time in my life I got a spontaneous bloody nose toward the end of the ten day period. not exactly fun to be walking down 5th ave with blood spurting out of your nose.
When I first moved tothe city shortly before memorial day I went running over the Brooklyn bridge for about 25 minutes (in the evening - which I now know to be the worst time to go). Unbeknownst to me I was running during an ozone alert.
The next day I had a terrible cough that I never thought would go away and I was sick for 10 days.
Until I moved here I hadn't been sick in ten years.
If I exercise indoors, when the air right outside the window is unhealthy, why can it be healthy inside the building?
What happens when air enters the building that makes it clean?
I commute on my bike so am biking during rush hour and when the city is hot and muggy and trapping all that soot I get home and my throat burns...so much fun living in the big city.
What are the risks of running in parks (i.e. Prospect Park, Central Park, etc.)?
I'm a cyclist. I'm also a former smoker.
I mainly ride my bike as transportation. I have often anecdotally noted that my lungs hurt more than after riding over the bridge on a "bad ozone" day than a night of chain smoking. This is a frightening realization and feeling.
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