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Exercise and COVID-19

How keeping up with your At-Home WOD's can actually help build your immunity.

Nicole Beer, Pn1, CF-L1 Trainer, JSA Gym

To put it simply, exercise makes us harder to kill.

We’ve all heard that regular exercise is important for our cardiovascular health and maintaining a healthy bodyweight.  We also know that moving our bodies everyday can fight chronic inflammation, relieve stress, elevate our mood,  and improve cognitive function.  

What we often don’t think about, however, is that working out can actually boost our immunity.  A stronger immune system = better protection from infection.  That’s right…those At-Home Workouts we are doing everyday may literally be helping us stay safe during the COVID-19 pandemic by building our immunity and making us harder to knock down.  And should someone become infected with this coronavirus, it’s possible that they will be better equipped to recover from it if they have been exercising regularly.  

According to Richard J. Simpson, Ph.D., FACSM and the American College of Sports Medicine, “Each bout of exercise, particularly whole-body dynamic cardiorespiratory exercise, instantaneously mobilizes literally billions of immune cells, especially those cell types that are capable of carrying out effector functions such as the recognition and killing of virus-infected cells.”   

So, that 20 minute AMRAP of odd object cleans, push-ups, and air squats could be doing more than just giving you that toned booty and swole traps that could catch a bear.  Oh yes, friends, those 20 minutes could very well be improving your immune system function and prompting your cells to fight off viral infection!  

While there is no current scientific data proving the effects of exercise on COVID-19, there is evidence that working out can protect us from several other viruses like the Flu.  With that in mind, I can’t help but feel convinced that staying active is definitely a piece of armor we can wear in our fight against the coronavirus.  

Let’s also not forget that the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing many of us to be confined to one place and subsequently feel isolated from society.  Social isolation is known to cause stress that can elevate our cortisol levels, which can lead to a host of health problems and make it challenging for our immune systems to function properly.  But don’t panic, because there is something you can do to help keep your stress and cortisol levels in check…something that you have complete control over…you guessed it: you can EXERCISE.  

So let’s stop making excuses about why we’re not working out.  Yes, the gym is closed.  We can’t WOD alongside our friends.  We can’t have a Coach right there to encourage us and correct our form when needed.  We may not have all of the equipment we normally like to use.  But there is absolutely NOTHING stopping us from moving our bodies.  We have programmed at-home workouts at our fingertips with full explanations, warm-ups, and scaling options.  We have odd objects around the house that we can use for loading.  We have a community of people that we can connect with virtually through Facebook and live Zoom classes.  We have some CONTROL here - so let’s take the reins and do everything we possibly can to protect ourselves from this virus.  Let’s make ourselves harder to kill.  Today.  Right now. 

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