Suck It Up!

It might not be the resistance training you intended to embark upon in 2020, but exercising with a mask will certainly restrict airflow, increase humidity & make you work harder for a given work output in comparison to being unmasked. Nasal breathing can reduce the humidity as opposed to breathing through your mouth, however that in itself is taxing as intensity increases. When your expiration of CO2 is no longer able to prevent blood acidosis, i.e., the point when your effort surpasses your secondary ventilatory threshold, you will need to breathe through your mouth. Training goals/paces should be modified to account for the added resistance. Many athletes have wondered if these conditions simulate altitude training. Despite breathing being more laborious, the answer is ‘no’ in that oxygen saturation in the air is still the same. It may not be all bad. Similar to other system adaptations experienced with training, habitual use of a mask when exercising may strengthen breathing muscles (Jagim et al., 2018; Porcari et al., 2016). Perhaps we all need to ‘suck it up’ this year!