What to do right after working outdoors to avoid getting sick?

What to do right after working outdoors to avoid getting sick?

Exercise in the cold season should be prepared with special care.

Candidate of Medical Sciences, founder and coach of the ERA running club.

What should you do if you get cold during training?

Is it possible to run outside in cold weather? And what prevents you from doing so? There is a saying in the running community “there is no such thing as non-running weather”. Indeed, it is very rare that weather conditions do not allow you to run at all, maybe a cold below -20°C with wind chill or very strong wind with heavy rain will force you to postpone your training, but there is usually a chance to dress properly and run. But what do you do if you can’t protect yourself from the cold? How not to get sick?

• It makes sense to plan training so that their beginning and end were in the warmth: from home to home, from car to car, from subway to subway.
• If you have to spend some time outside after training, try to change into warm and dry clothes as soon as possible. You can leave a change of clothes in the car or carry them with you in a lightweight backpack (choose a running backpack: it fastens at the waist and chest, fits snugly and does not hang on your back). It is especially important to change clothes on the upper half of the body, legs can tolerate.
• Training in cold weather will be much easier if you go into a warm place and eat or drink something hot afterwards. The abundance of fast food places in big cities is a great boon to the running community. Of course, it’s worth remembering that this is a way to keep warm, not a way to compensate for calories spent.

What should you do if you get cold during a workout?

Increase the intensity of the load
If you didn’t get your clothes right or the weather has turned bad and you’re cold at training, take action. The easiest thing to do is to increase the intensity of your workout. The faster you run, the more heat your muscles produce, which means the cold is easier to bear. When this does not help, you can try to keep warm: put on a hood, button up all the way. Hands will be warmer if you hide them in a muff made of buff.

I do not recommend giving up running outside in winter and fall. All alternatives have their disadvantages: running in circles in the arena in large volumes leads to injury as a result of uneven loading of the right and left leg. Running on an exercise machine is boring, and completely giving up running for the winter, in the spring you will find that you have completely lost the shape you gained during the previous summer and fall.

A limitation may be breathing difficulties in temperatures below -15°C. Even then, you can dress warmly and go for a light jog. The main thing is to avoid exertion that causes frequent and deep breathing, as you can get cold burns of the respiratory tract.