Wearing a mask can stifle ability to perform

Wearing a cloth face covering while exercising limits performance and physical capacity, a new study has found.

Masked joggers also reported increased breathlessness and claustrophobia when exercising at higher intensities, according to researchers.

The results of the small clinical trial were published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM).

It comes following a controversy in which academics suggested that wearing a mask while running past people would help stem the spread of coronavirus.

Trish Greenhalgh, professor in primary care health sciences at the University of Oxford, said there can be a “danger” for pedestrians when a “puffing, panting” jogger runs past them.

“The exercising jogger – the puffing and panting jogger – you can feel their breath come and you can sometimes actually feel yourself inhale it, so there’s no doubt that there is a danger there,” she told Good Morning Britain.

Previous research on the effect of face coverings on exercising have mostly studied surgical masks, which are not widely available, researchers said.

The findings published in the BJSM were based on the exercise performance of 31 healthy adults aged 18-29 while running on a treadmill to exhaustion, once while wearing a cloth face covering and once without.

The majority of participants (30) agreed or strongly agreed that it was harder to give maximum effort while wearing a mask.

Some described feeling “claustrophobic,” “suffocated” and “anxious” as they could not “get a deep breath”.