I'm not much of a fan of exercise in the first place but as I'm doing my part in this lock down and noticing myself breathing heavily, I start to wonder. The virus spreads to the lungs from the throat and mouth via respiration. So as I increase the intensity of my breathing, if I were to be currently infected from my trip from Spain, and my throat were starting to fill up with the virus, would I be accelerating spread to my lungs moreso than regular breathing?

I think the thought mainly comes from that chinese paper on how to self treat CV. It said to drink warm liquids every 20 mins to wash the virus into your stomach so that not as much gets inhaled.

Gargling Listerine would have a greater effect on killing bacteria or virus in the throat before it has time to fully colonize. That and Netflixing.

I am webMD trained, so I'm pretty sure I have a good handle on this.

To answer the OP, no, exercising and breathing heavily will not spread any virus you may have. The question is why do you think you have the virus? Did you just get back from Spain in the last 14 days? Do you exhibit any actual symptoms of Covid-19? Are you self quarantined or around others and afraid you could get the virus?

The fact is that you can and should exercise if you show no signs of the virus unless you've tested positive. And the heavy breathing won't "spread" something you already have. Exercise can knock down your immunity some but mainly if you really train hard. One could argue that if you are a novice trainee, you really can't get to that level of training as you are not conditioned yet to the extent you are training that hard. It may feel hard to you, but how your training feels (your rate of perceived exertion) is relative to the person and the level of fitness they are at. As long as you exercise and stay home for 3 hours afterward and get enough rest and sleep plus eat well, you should be fine.

Another consideration: Heavy breathing means you are training hard enough to elicit more lung usage, and overtime that will increase your lung capacity. Better lung capacity will give you a better fighting chance if you catch any kind of respiratory disease. So keep it up!

Best excuse to get out of exercising ever!!!

Good to hear. We just got back on Thursday from a 2 month extended stay in Portugal/Spain that was abruptly ended for obvious reasons. We are self quarantining and all. Just lot's of paranoia as we wake up with any congestion or cough. Pretty sure we are both fine.

Not to make fun of the OP but this sounds like an excuse my wife would come up with to continue not exercising

It makes sense in a medically uneducated way.

All the literature and videos explaining how the virus spreads say that the virus gets into the lungs and attaches to those receptors. From there it infects the cells which replicate the virus and spreads from there, but if you think of it like your lungs are the US and your trachea is people coming into the US from other countries, then it makes sense that you would want to limit the incoming infected that will each create more infected colonies of cells (citizens). Sure it's already in the US and spreading, but why add more to the mix?

Unless it spreads by blood, which I don't think it does.

Sounds like you are already dead OP

oh no said:

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i went for a run yesterday with two of my kids... and there were about a 1000 other people also running or biking on the paths, because that seems to be one of the only options these days... and it freaked me out, man..

that LA times article someone posted yesterday about the choir group in Washington really has me freaked out.

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I just looked that up. Wow.

No. For the reasons explained above. On exercise generally:

If you've exercised before, at least mildly regularly, you should have a pretty good idea of what your body *should* feel like during exercise.

Like any advice given about exercise, if you feel as if something is not normal, take a break. If your recovery is abnormally slow--taking into account you just might be out of shape--then stop.

Try again another time with a mild exercise. If it becomes more clear that you're not just out of shape, but rather there really is something wrong, that's when you start to worry a bit more.

If you have honest concerns, start taking your temperature and pay attention to your breathing when you are at rest or just walking around the house.


Exercise is important, for many reasons!

I would think you would get as much benefit from a brisk walk if you haven't been running much previously.

Is it possible that moderate intake of bourbon on a nightly basis might create an unsuitable environment for a virus such as this? Please just tell me yes so i can feel better about myself.

For the highly anxious I think the best thing would be to get the virus and get it in your rear view mirror. If you are under 70 and have no health issues the vast, vast majority of infected have symptoms they can get through without hospitalization and certainly not death. How nice would it feel to have had it, gotten through it, and have at least a degree of immunity that would indicate you would get a milder case a second time, if you got it at all.

Until you get it and get past it, the highly anxious will focus on those "under 40 never been sick" deceased - a very rare event, statistically.

As a person with some anxiety, that's how at least one part of my mind is thinking.

Coronaphobia