If you have asthma, you may realize that when you exercise or push your body to the limits your breathing gets harder, you cough and your asthma symptoms are intensified. This is very common but does not mean you can’t workout the way you would like to. One can train their body to improve their lung function and build up endurance so their asthma symptoms are lessened. Exercise is important for many reasons and staying active while having asthma can actually help to reduce it with time.
If you have asthma and are just starting out with exercise, it is good to know not to do any high intensity activities, such as running, that will make your asthma worse. You need to build up endurance, stamina and lung capacity first.
Yoga is a great form of exercise that focuses on your breathing and in return, will increase ones lung capacity. Yoga uses a rhythmic breathing technique to destress the body and mind. This is done by focusing your breaths with your movements and having your body be in sync with each breath taken. Overtime, all the deep breaths taken increase lung capacity which for those with asthma, means they can exercise longer before asthma symptoms come about.
Biking or cycling is an activity in which you can start off at a light pace and as your lung function improves, you can increase your intensity. Your lungs and body will build up endurance and just like yoga, your lung capacity will improve. As your body gets stronger and your endurance increases, you’ll be able to bike longer and at higher resistances to get an awesome workout.
Exercising in warm climates, compared to cold, dry areas plays a big factor in your breathing as well. For those with asthma, cold and dry is not good. This type of weather effects the lungs and makes breathing a lot harder and can impact your workout. Also, if you like to exercise outside, overly humid, hot days will effect you the same as cold days and are not recommended.
Make sure when exercising to always have your inhaler nearby. If your symptoms are brought about and are not regressing, use your inhaler and take a nice long rest to catch your breath!
