While exercising with a face mask on, it is best to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, and build up workout intensity incrementally over a three-week period, a trainer said on Saturday.
Masks should also be changed every 30 minutes, as moisture becomes trapped inside the mask during a workout, Olympic badminton team coach Lo Yo-wei (羅友威) said.
Masks have been required since the Central Epidemic Command Center raised the COVID-19 alert to level 3 in May. Despite masks being required indoors at public venues, some people remain unsure of how to safely wear them during exercise, Lo said.
Photo: CNA
“More moisture enters your nasal cavity during exercise, so you need to adjust your pace and intensity. If not, you could become anaerobic or start to hyperventilate,” he said.
It is also advised to rest more between sets when doing resistance exercises, and to take a short break between exercising different muscle groups, he said.
Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth can increase the respiratory exchange ratio, Lo said, adding that breathing in such a manner requires practice at first.
“If you’re playing ball sports, it is harder to focus on your breathing, so in that case you may need more time to adjust,” he said.
A period of two to three weeks might be required for someone who exercises two to three times per week to adjust their breathing pattern, he said.
Meanwhile, weight trainer Lu Yu-wen (盧裕文) said that those returning to the gym after an extended absence should start with lighter weights to adjust.
“When you’ve been stuck indoors for a long time, your body adapts to that sedentary lifestyle, and your body strength naturally declines,” he said. “Many people overestimate themselves when returning to the gym and they find themselves injured.”
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) on Saturday said that many fellow running enthusiasts have told him they would have preferred not to run with a mask on.
“However, since this pandemic does not appear close to ending, more and more people are getting used to exercising with a mask on,” he said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安), who began weight training one year ago, on Saturday said that upon returning to the gym recently, he felt himself weaker and had difficulty lifting weights with a mask on.
However, he has been adapting to the mask and adjusting his workouts, he said.
“Despite this pandemic, I really hope to keep exercising. I try to get to the gym once or twice per week on average,” Chiang said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods