How to stay safe when exercising outdoors
Keep these tips in mind during your winter workouts
The shift to colder weather makes hibernating under a pile of blankets quite tempting. But outdoor exercise is a great way to improve energy levels, boost the immune system, connect with nature and, during the pandemic, safely socialize with people outside your bubble.
But an outdoor exercise routine during the winter does bring unique risks. Cold temperatures cause blood vessels to narrow, making it harder for the heart to pump blood and potentially straining the heart. This narrowing of blood vessels can also keep muscles from getting the oxygen they need to stay warm and flexible, which can lead to injury. Hypothermia, frostbite and falls on icy ground are also hazards of winter weather.
A little planning and preparation can mitigate the risk — whether you’re going for a winter walk, trekking in snowshoes or sledding with the children.
Here is what you need to know.
Before you head out
Fuel up: The body has two main types of adipose tissue or fat — white and brown. Unlike standard white fat, which stores calories, brown fat is packed with energy-creating mitochondria that produces heat and helps the body maintain its core temperature when it is cold out. This is the type of fat hibernating animals use to stay warm.
“Essential fatty acids like omega-3s, DHA and EPA can help increase the amount of brown fat,” said Shawn Stevenson, nutritionist and author of the book “Eat Smarter.” “You’ll find that in salmon, roe, egg yolks and algae or krill oil. There’s no need to go crazy, but two to three servings a week can help during the cold time of year.”
Drink up: Cold temperatures cause physiological shifts that diminish the body’s thirst response and increase water loss through respiration — when you see your breath, water is leaving your body and evaporating — and urination (yes, you really do urinate more in the winter).
Gear up: Dress dry, not just warm. Water moves heat away from the body, leaving you cold and increasing your risk for hypothermia.
When you are heading out, start with a base layer made of merino wool, polypropylene or material that will wick away water and sweat. This includes glove liners, socks and hats, which can get wet with sweat and freeze. Next, add a slightly thicker layer made of fleece or light wool and top it off with something that breaks the wind.
Sunglasses or goggles and a buff, neckwear that can be pulled up over the mouth and nose, help protect the face. There is a variety of winter boot options, so be sure to check the temperature rating and traction.
“I buy hand and toe warmers in bulk and keep them in my pockets,” said Dr. Katie Eichten, a cross-country skier and emergency physician at the Hayward Area Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin. “I also put one against the back of my phone and put both in a middle-layer pocket so the battery lasts longer.”
While outside
Warm up (and cool down): When exercising in cold temperatures, your muscles are not as pliable and are at increased risk for injury and strain. The cold air also causes the upper airway to narrow, making it harder to breathe. Breathing through the nose and covering the nose and mouth with a scarf or mask can warm the air before it reaches the lower airway.
But both the muscles and the lungs need to warm up for at least 10 to 15 minutes.
Eichten, who has also completed more than 10 Birkies, a 50-kilometer cross-country race formally known as the American Birkebeiner, suggests moving at a slower pace of whatever activity you are planning to do and then adding in some dynamic stretches like arm circles, lunges and hip circles.
“You also need to let your breathing slow down before you go back into the warm air,” Eichten said. “Your lungs need to adjust to a normal breathing rate or you can induce a cough or spasm.”
Keep up: It is important to stay on top of your fuel, hydration and clothing while you are out.
If you are going to be active for more than 45 minutes, think about how you can fuel your body along the way. Eichten suggests a simple carbohydrate like a granola bar or an electrolyte drink.
You can also easily lose 1 to 2 liters of water while out, so bring water with you, be conscious of your activity level and take water breaks. Be sure to adjust your clothing as necessary.
“You want to stay warm, but you don’t want to get too sweaty,” said Sophie Caldwell Hamilton, a cross-country skier and two-time Olympian. “As the intensity ratchets up, I take off layers and then add them back on as I start to cool down.”
Back inside
Change: “Even if you don’t feel sweaty, the first thing you need to do is take off the layers that were next to your skin,” Eichten said. “You can get cold quickly. Your muscles will tighten because they’re trying to get warm.”
A warm shower helps soothe muscle fatigue while the steam opens up the airways.
Stretch: The cold weather and vasodilation of blood vessels causes more tightness in the muscles, which have to work harder than in milder weather. This can increase soreness and affect range of motion. Self-massage and stretching can encourage muscle recovery by improving blood flow and reducing inflammation.
Roll out: Jill Miller, the author of “The Roll Model,” uses two rubber massage balls to slowly roll out big muscle groups like the quadriceps as well as any areas that have been immobilized by boots or skates. This stimulates the tissue, increases circulation and adds to the feeling of warmth.
NEW YORK — When the Oprah Winfrey Network series “Queen Sugar” debuted in 2016, Cierra Glaude worked as a first team production assistant, an early riser who is responsible for keeping track of the actors on set.
“I’m basically their chaperone, their sister, girlfriend, mom, aunt,” she explained. “I know all of their dietary restrictions. I get them through the day, basically.”
In two short years, it marked the third time the young filmmaker had worked with Emmy winner Ava DuVernay, who created “Queen Sugar” and also hired Glaude to work on the Oscar-nominated 2014 film “Selma” as well as her CBS pilot “For Justice.”
On “Selma,” Glaude was an additional production assistant working with background actors as they marched on the highway from Selma to Montgomery. She was the director’s assistant on “For Justice,” where Glaude admits she “made some mistakes that I learned really quickly from.”
And on “Queen Sugar,” she continued as a first team production assistant for season two and was promoted to the writer’s room during season three.
Now she’s in the director’s chair — literally.
Glaude, 29, has directed three episodes for the show’s fifth season, which airs Tuesdays.
“I’ll just be walking around the house like,
‘Wait a minute.’ I find a mirror and go, ‘You’re a director,’ ” Glaude said. “It does feel like such a dream. Sometimes I’m like, ‘I can’t believe this is all happening still.’ It’s really lovely.”
“Queen Sugar” follows three siblings from Louisiana who manage a sugarcane farm left to them after their father died and is based off the 2014 novel of the same name. Its debut season won outstanding drama series at the 2017 NAACP Image Awards.
During the first season, DuVernay encouraged Glaude to shoot and produce her own material so she could one day direct on her set.
Glaude made her directorial debut in 2017 with the short “Last Looks,” which starred “Queen Sugar” and “True Blood” actor Rutina Wesley and aired on Issa Rae’s YouTube channel. Glaude was selected by Emmy winner Lena Waithe for the AT&T Hello Labs Filmmaker Mentorship Program, for
which she directed the short “Spilt Milk,” starring “Orange Is the New Black” actor Dascha Polanco.
She also directed music videos, including “High Rises” for breakthrough rapper Chika, who earned a best new artist Grammy nomination this year.
“All three of us — the director, the DP (director of photography) and the talent — we were all queer Black women from Alabama. That was really dope,” she said.
Glaude also built her production muscles by working on the hit 2017 film “Girls Trip”; 2018’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” which DuVernay directed; and “Twenties,” Waithe’s BET series that launched last year.
That’s when DuVernay knew Glaude was ready to
sit in one of her director’s chairs.
“When I met (Cierra), she was a student who left school for the opportunity to work on set. She made that decision for herself that she could get the degree in Alabama and still be struggling to get on a set, or she could leave the degree and just get on a set . ... She was the key PA on ‘Queen Sugar’ for a long time. That means she’s first in, 3 o’clock in the morning, 4 o’clock in the morning, last one out for years and years and years. For her to be able to go back on that show and be the director is enough to make me weep if I think about it for too long,” DuVernay said. “I know what she did to get there.”
Though Glaude dropped out of the University of
Alabama to officially pursue her film career, she has earned a degree of sorts from what could be considered the School of Ava DuVernay.
Take “Queen Sugar,” for instance, where DuVernay has created a series where every episode is directed by a woman. So far, 37 female filmmakers have had the chance to direct TV episodes thanks to the utopia DuVernay fashioned, 34 of whom made their television directorial debut on the series.
And the alumni have advanced to great heights, including Victoria Mahoney, the first woman to direct a “Star Wars” film; Amanda Marsalis has gone on to direct episodes of “Ozark,” “Westworld” and “The Umbrella Academy”; and Salli Richardson-Whitfield,
the actor-turneddirector, recently signed an overall deal with HBO.
“The point that we’re making is all these decades y’all just been hiring the same men and the same kind of men, thinking that’s the way to make a good show. We’re going to hire all women and the same kind of women, and we can also make a good show to stand as an example,” DuVernay said. “For decades and decades when we’ve been told that this is the only way — ‘Sugar’ stands as an example that was never true. It was a myth, and it’s been busted, and it’s been broken.”
The return of “Queen Sugar,” where the casting, post-production and music supervision departments are headed by women, comes at a historical time in Hollywood for female directors: For the first time ever, three women are nominated for best director at the 2020 Golden Globes, which will air Feb. 28.
“It’s overdue, so it’s bittersweet,” said DuVernay, who was the last woman nominated for best director at the Globes before Regina King, Chloe Zhao and Emerald Fennell picked up nominations this year. “It’s kind of like an eye roll and a nod at the same time. That’s great, but how about all the other 100 years before that? At this moment, we celebrate these three women, but we (do) say, ‘This is crazy.’ You’ve got to do both at the same time.”
Opportunity is at the center of the environment — or school — that DuVernay has manifested and produced with “Queen Sugar,” and it has given Glaude a chance to say four words not often and easily said by Black women: “I feel very seen.”
“It’s really just surreal,” she added. “It’s a gang of (tough) women. You can’t help but be enriched and inspired by that.”