Fitness Focus: COVID-19

Brief blog on the main things we can be doing to keep ourselves healthy. This is written through a performance exercise filter NOT a medical one.

Reducing excess body fat and increasing cardiovascular fitness

Unfortunately, being overweight, pre-diabetic or type ii diabetic causes massive stress on your cardiovascular system when infected with any virus or bacteria, let alone a respiratory virus such as SARS2. But not to worry, watch this video below on 10 minute walks by Stan Effeding. This will help you lose body fat and therefore reduce the stress on your cardiovascular system.

Reducing environmental and dietary inflammation

We have all heard about cytokine storms and subsequent organ failure, in relation to COVID-19. Whilst we are not suggesting this will help reverse such an event, it's important nonetheless, to keep your inflammation as low as possible, with the exception of the acute inflammation caused by exercise or other therapeutic mechanisms. You can do this by staying away from refined sugars, keeping any days you are in a caloric surplus to a minimum, following a ketogenic diet and time restricting your eating with a 14+ hour fast. FoundMyFitness' Rhonda Patrick discusses keto below:

Also, sleeping as well as possible is essential for decreasing and managing inflammation. In our experience, 8+ hours a night is beneficial for most people.

The Sleep Doctor has a detailed blog below:

Respiratory training

Focus particularly on nose breathing, as it can help with lung volume, temperature regulation and blood oxidation levels. The easiest way to implement this, is during your workouts. Read the article by breathing.com for more information:

Blog and links curated by SFitnessPlans.com

Disclaimer: We are not doctors, so please consult one before using in any of the information in this article. The purpose of this blog is to share our considerable experience in fitness. When it comes to your health and fitness, make sure you do your research. Visit sfitnessplans.com for more information specifically our "terms and conditions".