Josh Perez Fitness

For some people, exercise itself is an uncomfortable activity, with all the sweating, huffing and puffing, and challenge that comes with elevating your heart rate for an extended period of time. But for people with seasonal allergies, the discomforts of exercise reach a whole new level. Your eyes are itchy and watery, your nose is stuffed up or runny, and breathing can become difficult. But that doesn’t mean that you should give up on your plans to make regular exercise a part of your healthy lifestyle. In general, people with allergies can and should exercise (as long as their health care provider says it’s okay). The following tips will help you make the most of your workouts and keep your allergy symptoms at bay.

If you are a beginner to fitness, exercise indoors for a few weeks before you move your workout sessions outside. This will help you build up your fitness level without worrying about allergy symptoms on top of the challenges of starting an exercise program.

Take your allergy medication on a regular basis to remain protected. At the very least, take your medication and/or use eye drops at least one hour (or 24 hours, if using a nasal spray) prior to exercising.

If you receive allergy shots, do not exercise strenuously for at least one or two hours after your injection. Vigorous exercise, which increases heart rate and blood flow, can lead to a rapid absorption of the shot, increasing your chances of serious side effects.

Watch the weather. Changes in weather (temperature, wind, humidity and precipitation) all affect pollen counts. Warm, dry, and breezy days—especially in the morning—tend to increase pollen counts (avoid outdoor exercise during these conditions), while rainy, cooler days and evenings will reduce pollen concentration.

If you’re feeling under the weather, avoid outdoor exercise. Your immune system is more likely to react severely to allergens when you’re tired, sick, or overly stressed.

Before heading outside, listen to the radio to check pollen/mold counts or log onto a pollen count website. Adjust your workout plan accordingly, based on the counts and your level of sensitivity. According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, “low” pollen counts will only affect individuals who are extremely sensitive to pollen and mold; “moderate” pollen counts will give many individuals symptoms; and “high” pollen counts affect almost everyone with any sensitivity to pollen and molds.

Spend at least five minutes warming up before you start each workout.

Here are some tips that will help prevent and reduce your allergy symptoms so you can exercise comfortably.

• If you’re allergic to dust mites, you can avoid breathing indoor dust by exercising outdoors.
• If you’re allergic to grasses and weeds, avoid these allergens by exercising indoors during the height of the allergy season.
• Air pollution can trigger a tightening of the airways in sensitive individuals, making it difficult to breathe when exercising on sidewalks—and even up to 50 feet away from the road. Avoid contact with outdoor pollutants (near busy roads, for example) by exercising at low-traffic times and locations or exercising indoors.
• If you’re allergic to pollen and want to exercise outdoors, plan your workouts for times when pollen counts are lowest. They tend to peak between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m., so skip an early morning workout in favor of an afternoon or evening exercise session.
• If your seasonal allergies are severe, you may need to limit your outdoor workouts completely—especially when pollen counts are at their peak levels.
• Remember that outdoor allergens like pollen can travel several miles. Although you may feel better when exercising further away from allergens like grass and trees, you may still exhibit allergy symptoms while on a tennis court, an asphalt track, or even at the beach.
• To prevent itchy, watery eyes when outdoors, wear wrap-around sunglasses to prevent allergens and wind from compounding the problem.
• Consider wearing a paper face mask to filter out allergens while you breathe heavily during exercise.

Spend at least 10 minutes to properly cool down. And don’t forget to stretch! If you exercised outdoors, change you clothes (preferably outside to keep allergens on your clothes out of the house), and shower as soon as possible to remove allergens from your skin and hair.

Keep windows closed and use the air conditioner to clear the air even more. Consider using a nasal spray (saline) to clear allergens from your nose.

Exercise is an important component of a healthy lifestyle. While allergies may be a nuisance, there are lots of options for working your workouts around your symptoms. In fact, a good workout may even help reduce your allergy symptoms. Your body produces extra adrenalin during exercise, which benefits the body by lowering your allergic response (temporarily). This means that exposure to outdoor allergens while you are working out might not result in a reaction. But once that workout is over (and adrenalin levels return to normal), allergy symptoms are more likely to flare up.

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Your exercise heart rate is the most precise way to measure intensity. Your target heart rate is a training zone—an estimate of where your heart rate should be to insure that you are training aerobically. Training below your target zone may not be intense enough to burn sufficient calories, while training above your zone will force your body to burn calories anaerobically (without or lacking oxygen) and inefficiently.

Another element in finding your training heart rate zone is determining the intensity level at which you should exercise. Your individual level of fitness will ultimately determine where you fall within this range. Use the following as a guide for determining your intensity level:

Beginner or low fitness level . . 50% – 60%

Average fitness level . . . . . . . . 60% – 70%

High fitness level . . . . . . . . . . . 75% – 85%

If you feel lethargic before, during, or after your workouts, you should have a blood test done to determine your iron status. Having an iron deficiency is a common problem among women who exercise, in particular when it comes to cardiovascular exercise.

A severe loss of iron can lead to anemia (deficiency of red blood cells). Since iron is a key component to hemoglobin concentration and hematocrit (percentage of blood composed of red blood cells).

So you if you do nothing but cardiovascular work, you might be in danger. If you are iron deficient, you may need to take an iron supplement, I suggest taking it with vitamin C to help increase its absorption.

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What super-setting does: when you overload your muscles by moving with little or no rest between pairs of complimentary exercises. For example, if your performing a leg press, then you immediately want to go into a dumbbell lunge, or you can jump rope for 2 minutes between each exercise.

Super-setting is an advanced technique geared towards stimulating your muscles into a growth spurt. The extra demand placed on your muscle groups requires additional recovery time. Especially, if your body is not used to the new technique or stimuli.

Ideally, you want to rest about 1 minute after concluding the last exercise of the super-set. You can optimally do 3, 4, or 5 exercises in a row before resting. But that all depends on your fitness level and personal goal. This is a great technique to maximize your time spent in the gym, and squeeze in a quick 30 minute workout on your break.

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This is the absolute most critical time of the day to make sure your nutrition is on point. Especially if your that person trying to build a more desirable body. With what you consume for the next 2 to 4 hours following your workout will dictate the type of gains you will have, and the outcome of change in your physique.

1) Calories matter here, some experts recommend consuming 50% of your total calorie intake within 4 hours. I’d say make it more like 40%, because the nutrient uptake to your muscles is at it’s greatest. Think of your muscles as a sponge right after any physical activity, and this usually occurs after any hard weight training workout.

It makes sense because your muscle breaks down during the workout and depletes valuable nutrients, and now the body is prepared to take them back. The reason why I suggested 40% because you do not want to go overboard with the calories.

2) With a post workout, insulin sensitivity is at it’s greatest. One of the purposes of insulin is to help transport nutrients like glucose, amino acids, and creatine into muscle cells.

Taking insulin-increasing compounds like chromium, and alpha lipoic acid will help.

3) Staying properly hydrated with water at this time is important to help water soluble vitamins make their way to your muscles, and transport nutrients in your body.

4) Combining carbohydrates with protein immediately after your workout will enhance glycogen synthesis even more that plain alone carbohydrates. Consuming a rich protein and carbohydrate drink within 20 minutes will maximize insulin levels for at least several hours following your workout. Ideally, what your looking for here is a ratio of 4:1 carbohydrates to proteins.

The goal of the post-workout is to increase muscle anabolism, protein synthesis, while decreasing or lowering cortisol levels. Remember, we want to increase cell volume to create a sizable anabolic environment in the muscle.

5) I suggest taking a post-workout recovery drink. This is essential to proper workout recovery as well as building lean muscle tissue.

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