Exercising while wearing a mask

Learn what type works best and when you should wear one.

Wearing a mask during exercise reduces the risk that we will infect someone with the coronavirus if we unwittingly carry the disease. But wearing a mask also affects how the exercise affects us, according to exercise scientists who have begun to look into the effects of covering your face while working out.

Their research and insights, some of them based on self-experimentation, raise practical questions about whether some types of masks may be better than others for exercise, how often masks should be changed during prolonged exertions and how much we should expect our heart rates to soar if we attempt to interval train while wearing a mask.

Almost all of us know that the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends we cover our faces while in crowded public spaces, such as parks or pathways, and in shared, indoor locations, including gyms, to help block the transmission of the coronavirus through respiration. These recommendations become particularly pressing when we exercise, since past studies show that our breathing rates can double or even quadruple then, sending out higher numbers of potentially infectious respiratory droplets.

But while there is growing evidence that masks can affect breathing in general, little is yet known scientifically about if and how face coverings change the subjective experience and physical effects of exercise. A commentary published this month on the website of the British Journal of Sports Medicine points out that covering your face during exercise “comes with issues of potential breathing restriction and dis

PHILLIP CARUSO/HULU Zoe Kravitz as Robyn in “High Fidelity.”