I went back to the gym, a bit reluctantly I’ll admit, about a month ago. I do most of my exercise at home now where our set up has grown considerably over Covid.
But, you know, sometimes I’m out, or Jane is swimming, and its just more convenient to get the work done at a gym, especially if I’m using a bit of kit I don’t have at home, like an elliptical.
I went about four months without setting foot inside a gym after the first Omicron surge. It just seemed like a bad bet. And this NYT story, reprinted in the Herald, is a pretty good explainer as to why.
Unsurprisingly, when people get busy with exercise they breathe heavier and expel a lot of more aerosols, including virus particles. A new study had a go at measuring exactly how much more, and… gulp.
The study looked at the number of aerosol particles 16 people exhaled at rest and during workouts. These tiny bits of airborne matter – measuring barely a few hundred micrometres in diameter, or about the width of a strand of hair, and suspended in mist from our lungs – can transmit the coronavirus if someone is infected, ferrying the virus lightly through the air from one pair of lungs to another.
The study found that, at rest, the men and women breathed out about 500 particles per minute. But when they exercised, that total soared 132-fold, topping out above 76,000 ppm, on average, during the most strenuous exertion.
That seems… a bit. The story goes on to recount a bunch of super spreading zumba classes.
Mostly I try and use my favourite gym when it’s empty, and a couple of times I’ve just turned around and walked out when it was super crowded. Took myself off for a walk instead.
I’m still not really comfortable going there, but I guess this risk juggling game is just something we’re all gonna have to get used to.
I'm not even prepared to drink coffee inside these days. Can not imagine being in an enclosed space with people breathing and sweating together. Maybe if the gym is build inside a wind tunnel, MAYBE.
You need a cardio zone and a home sauna. After my heart attack and COVID, I equipped my unfinished basement with basically a full gym. Worth the money and now no excuses for not working out.
I'm not even prepared to drink coffee inside these days. Can not imagine being in an enclosed space with people breathing and sweating together. Maybe if the gym is build inside a wind tunnel, MAYBE.
You need a cardio zone and a home sauna. After my heart attack and COVID, I equipped my unfinished basement with basically a full gym. Worth the money and now no excuses for not working out.
Your health is your most important asset.
Who knows which one of those munters has just brewed up a super contagious super deadly variant in their lungs.