The Health Effects of Wearing a Mask While Training
Let's talk according to the science, not politics.
“All truth passes through three phases. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.” - Arthur Schopenhauer
It’s unfortunate that people aren’t getting the information they need these days to make sure they can make healthy decisions and avoid sickness or harm. Sometimes we fall in line with the status quo or follow customs to our detriment. It’s more critical now than ever to study, to question, observe and critically think. Biology doesn’t give us a pass just because we were doing what everyone else was doing. Our bodies and our chemistry will simply respond to whatever stimulus, good or bad, we provide it. The consequences come no matter what. So let’s do what is truly good for the body, not just what we’re told to do.
I hope you all had a wonderful day. Let’s talk about oxygen, masks and training so the next time you train you can train smart.
God bless.
Being in the health and fitness industry I’ve been concerned about the effects of masks when it comes to exercise and how this affects training, recovery, performance and overall human health. It seems the science and physiology is somehow being overlooked.
First Lets’s Look at The Effects of Wearing Masks in General.
In a piece by Roger W. Koops, Ph.D., entitled Year of Disguises written for the American institute for Economic Research, he details what happens when wearing a mask. Roger holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Riverside as well as a Master’s and Bachelor ’s degree from Western Washington University and has worked in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Industry for over 25 years. He explains at length the concerns with different types of masks, particle size of pathogens, and evaporation of moisture droplets and aerosols that contain virus molecules. I’m going to condense this but there are 3 things that happen when wearing a mask:
When it comes to the mask effectively stopping a moisture droplet that contains virus molecules, bacteria and other debris, the virus molecules start to accumulate in the mask faster than the evaporation of the moisture droplet.
The virus molecule remains on the mask after droplet evaporation. It’s now all jumbled up in the other debris and bacteria from exhalation and the mask is now saturated with virus molecules.
When the person breathes again or speaks, coughs, sneezes or grunts, all those accumulated virus molecules can now be forcibly expelled out into the environment. With the moisture droplet evaporated on surface contact (the mask), the virus is small enough to pass right through the mask.
This entire process creates a shotgun effect where a number of virus molecules have accumulated, only being held in place by all the other debris and bacteria. Then when you cough, speak or even breathe again all those virus molecules are literally projected out into the environment. This is in light of the fact that masks and face coverings are rarely properly worn and fitted anyhow.
Roger goes on to explain:
I will say that there has only been one type of mask, the surgical mask, which has shown any ability to reduce, not eliminate, virus transmission because it is actually rated to a 100 nanometer pore size AND it is rated for ingress [incoming air] and egress [expelled air]. But, the SURGICAL mask is not intended for use outside of a controlled, sterile hospital surgical field where its use and function can be controlled. It has limitations.
Moisture droplets that masks are said to stop eventually evaporate exposing the virus. Face coverings don’t stop a particle the size of a virus at 100 nm. The mechanics of the coronavirus (CV) and influenza (IF) are essentially the same. What works or doesn’t work for one is the same for the other.
Consider a gym environment where people are vigorously exercising, breathing hard and sweating and accumulating moisture and bacteria in that mask in a non-sterile environment. This is not the environment these masks were designed to work in and is an environment where they are minimally effective in. Other masks and face coverings will be even less effective even in normal conditions, let alone when you’re exercising. In addition to all of the other harm that covering your face while exercising can cause, this is a real health concern.
Roger also states…
It boggles my mind when there is some notion that by wearing a face covering you are actually doing a “service” to your neighbor and therefore everyone has to protect everyone by this. Actually, the opposite is true. You are now becoming an additional potential source of environmental contamination. You are now becoming a transmission risk; not only are you increasing your own risk but you are also increasing the risk to others.
Interesting statement.
There are numerous studies detailing the harmful effects of masks. Here is a compilation of 42 different studies published in medical journals and academic papers entitled Masks Are Neither Effective Nor Safe: A Summary Of The Science. Following the science is exactly what we ought to be doing.
Then you have the Danish mask study which was finally published after being suppressed and three major journals refusing to publish it for political reasons. If it’s really about our health and we’re going to have an honest discussion, why suppress the scientific data? The truth always comes to light under investigation. Perhaps that’s the reason why certain information is suppressed and why certain individuals are silenced.
Now Let’s Look at Masks in Regards to Exercise:
Oxygen is needed during and after training for the metabolic processes of adaptation and recovery to occur. One process is called Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) also known as oxygen debt.
After exercise oxygen is used to:
Resynthesize muscle glycogen from lactate
Replace ATP expended during your workout
Restore oxygen levels in blood, myoglobin and muscle
Repair muscle tissue and works with protein in order to accomplish this
The body also burns calories in the consumption of oxygen (about 5 calories for 1 liter of oxygen). Exercise that consumes more oxygen burns more calories. So increasing the amount of oxygen consumed both during and after exercise can increase the number of calories burned. You don’t want to hinder this process by chronically reducing your oxygen availability and consumption every workout or even on a daily basis. Interestingly, most of the fat we burn is exhaled through the breath.
When you're wearing a mask you’re also getting moisture and bacterial buildup as you sweat and breath. You also recapture more CO2 back into your lungs that you were supposed to be expelling as waste. This can be somewhat mitigated with the fitting of the mask but the best remedy is to breathe freely and naturally and allow the body to adjust as it normally would to training and oxygen debt.
Oxygen plays a critical role in overall fitness and adaptation. One thing is clear; according to the science, prolonged and chronic use of a mask, especially during exercise, puts you at greater risk of sickness and infection. This is on top of it diminishing your performance, increasing physiological demand and your RPE (rate of perceived exertion), reducing focus and cognition and potentially causing dizziness which could lead to fainting and risk of falling. When looking at all of this, you can see that your overall health and fitness takes a nosedive when placing a restrictive covering over your face when training.
All the concerns that exist with wearing a mask in general are exacerbated when training. When you’re exercising you’re doing everything you would normally be doing but to a much higher level. You’re exchanging gases, your heart is pumping, your lungs are extracting oxygen and expelling CO2, your heart and skeletal muscles are also extracting oxygen to power your workout, your mitochondria are utilizing oxygen to produce energy. We know that ATP (the energy currency of the body) needs oxygen in order to be produced in the Krebs cycle and electron transport chain. Even activities that are anaerobic (without oxygen) that use energy pathways such as the ATP-PCr system and the initial activation of the glycolytic pathway last only seconds to minutes at most. They run out of energy quickly precisely because they are anaerobic. Your body must eventually utilize oxygen or it can’t continue. In general, when it comes to cognition and physical and mental energy, restricting oxygen, especially in the long run, is not a good idea if you want to think and perform at your best.
Cedric Bryant who is the president and chief science officer of the American Council on Exercise (Ace), a nonprofit organization that funds exercise research and certifies fitness professionals, says in an article entitled How Wearing a Face Mask Affects The Impact of Exercise:
In my personal experience, heart rates are higher at the same relative intensity when you wear a mask”.
The World Health Organization (WHO) itself has stated that “masks should not be worn during vigorous physical activity because of the risk of reducing your breathing capacity.” But what if you’re around others? Let’s look at the Infection Survival Rate/Infection Fatality Rate (see chart below). Does a virus with an above 99% survival rate for anyone ages 0-69 and above 94% even for those 70+ warrant harm to your health, especially since exercise is one of the very things that will increase your defense against the disease? Do we want to inhibit what would make us stronger against infection? The same measures taken for the cold and flu in times past are the same measures to be taken for Covid-19 which does not include forcibly masking and forcibly vaccinating an entire population against a threat scientifically proven to be no greater than the seasonal flu. The mandates that are currently trying to be enforced do the very opposite of what they claim they do. They make you sicker, not healthier.
Let’s look at how oxygen is needed and used during high intensity interval training (HIIT). In an article by Ben Greenfield entitled The Two Best Ways To Build Endurance As Fast As Possible (Without Destroying Your Body) – Part 2 he states:
As you learned earlier, when your muscles contract, they propel blood back to heart, which increases the amount of blood filling your heart and the heart's subsequent stroke volume. Within just 1-2 days of HIIT training, tiny blood vessel changes begin to take place in your skeletal muscle that improve the flow of oxygen in and out of the muscle and better “match” oxygen delivery to oxygen utilization. These microvascular adaptations are accompanied by an actual increase in the strength of the skeletal muscle fibers themselves, which allows for even more forceful pumping potential.
And in a UC Davis Sports Medicine publication entitled VO2: Rate of Oxygen Consumption
Training results in an increase in the efficiency of oxygen transport within the body. By lowering the resting heart rate (HR), and the HR at sub maximal loads, the heart pumps more blood with every heart beat. This, in addition to other physiological changes, increases the oxygen extraction capability. When an individual is tested before and after training while performing exercise at the same load, a lower HR is shown after training because more blood (thus, oxygen) is delivered in each heart beat.
For these adaptations to occur oxygen must be present. Do you really want to hinder any part of this process by wearing a mask during your training session and restricting the very thing you need in order to physiologically adapt in response to your workout?
Fitness and adaptation comes down to how well your body circulates and utilizes blood and oxygen and how much blood and oxygen are present. There is the concept of hormesis. Your body can and does become stronger and more efficient when exposed to stress and challenge. But like everything, there’s a limit to this and a point where eustress (beneficial challenge) becomes outright stress and is now harmful with no positive effect.
Training Masks
There’s techniques such as breath holding and practicing oxygen restriction in order to increase lung capacity and improve oxygen utilization. These techniques are done methodically, incrementally and intermittently. They’re used so that when breathing normally you can use oxygen more efficiently and yes, even require less. Masks that simulate high altitude training are an example of a method that aims to improve oxygen capacity when used for a time and in conjunction with bouts of exposure to oxygen rich environments. But even training masks such as these are questionable and the science isn’t clear. Discussed in an article called Can Wearing a Mask Really Make You a Better Athlete? The main premise behind using an altitude training mask is this:
…oxygen deprivation training promotes the formation of red cells that will increase the hemoglobin concentration in one’s blood, which in turn will help increase the oxygenation of your body and perform better. This effect is basically an adaptation mechanism of your body to a low-oxygen environment, whether this is due to natural or artificial circumstances — by using a mask or any other oxygen deprivation device, such as hypobaric chambers. However, this phenomenon is not necessarily or exclusively due to the use of masks and/or devices. It could be attributed to the athlete taking deeper breaths that will have more oxygen, but in a lower number of breaths taken.
So you see, the goal of the altitude training mask could be achieved by the athlete simply taking deeper breaths; essentially a type of breath work. I’m a big believer in breath work. And the beauty is you can do this without putting a restrictive piece of material over your face and subjecting yourself to excess moisture and bacteria build up.
The article goes on to state…
Another current and popular practice is the “live high, train low” or “train high, live low” premise. It’s based on intermittent exposure to high-altitude, low-oxygen environments (train high) followed by low-altitude periods (live low) where the oxygen levels are high. This allows the body to stave off the detrimental effects of prolonged hypoxia, as well as promoting the formation of red blood cells, hemoglobin and erythropoietin.
That’s different from wearing a mask that is impeding oxygen consumption while simultaneously preventing the expelling of carbon dioxide. Dr. Fuad Khan, a medical doctor and former Minister of Health who had been singularly lobbying against the use of masks during exercise puts it this way:
What it does to certain people, it decreases the oxygen partial pressure in the air surrounding the mask and it can cause someone to become very light-headed due to a build-up of carbon dioxide,”
Dr. Khan adds…
Your lung tidal volume will decrease and will increase with a lot of partial pressures of carbon dioxide rather than oxygen and you will end up with a blood carbon dioxide level that is above the normal level in someone with no health problems, worst yet for someone who has respiratory, asthmatic or nasal conditions or who are mouth breathers.
And he noted that with the use of a mask during exercise, one also ran the risk of having unnatural increased heart rates.
In a UPMC sports medicine article concerning training masks it states:
Other studies, however, haven’t found any benefits from wearing training masks. In a study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research showed that wearing an elevation training mask while lifting weights was associated with decreased alertness and a lower ability to focus on the task.
In a publication of The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research it states:
A lower peak velocity was identified during the back squat, bench press, and sprint test in the ETM [Elevation Training Mask] condition (p = 0.04). Blood lactate values were lower after bench press and sprint during the ETM condition (p < 0.001). Significantly lower ratings of alertness and focus for task were found after squat, bench press, and sprint test in the ETM condition compared with the NM [non masked] condition (p < 0.001).
And further stating…
However, wearing the ETM does seem to attenuate the ability to maintain working velocity during training bouts and negatively influence ratings of alertness and focus for task.
There’s plenty of politics and regulation in favor of widespread mask wearing. But politics and science are two different things. Let’s not let politics spin the data. There’s clear science against the effectiveness of mask wearing in general, let alone during exercise, especially outside. Aside from the concern of air quality and flying debris, there is no reason and no science behind wearing a mask when exercising outdoors or when even being outdoors. So, if you’re hesitant to skip the mask inside a gym, you may want to try taking your workouts (even just some of them) outside. The CDC itself states “In general, you do not need to wear a mask in outdoor settings”. There’s countless benefits of outdoor workouts. You can also try one of these healthy options for a mask. Extremely convenient, truly breathable, oxygen-allowing masks that can alleviate the worry and detrimental health effects of wearing a mask every day, especially when exercising. You can even show your smile. Something that’s very quickly becoming a rarity. This is important because we need to consider the psychological effects of getting rid of our humanity, not seeing facial expressions and the smiles of other people. But that’s a topic that requires its own discussion. Just carefully reconsider regularly donning a mask each and every time you go to exercise.
Train hard. Train smart. Be healthy. Think critically. And just breathe.
Very brave of you to discuss