SPEAKER_01 0:14

Welcome to Practically Fit, Real Fitness Over 40. I'm Alex Johnson. And I'm Jen Chamberlain. And today we're going to talk about something very timely, and that's outdoor workouts in less than ideal conditions like heat, humidity, smoke, and poor air quality. Should you push through these conditions or head indoors? And if you do decide to run, bike, or hike, what precautions should you take?

SPEAKER_00 0:38

You know, Alex, I feel like this is very timely for you right now because it's what, like 110 degrees in Texas? I've been reading about this massive heat that you guys have been having.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Yeah, so the the past few days it's kind of eased off. But yeah, we had what's called a heat dome, which is when the atmosphere traps hot ocean air, like a dome, like a litter, a capsule. This happens over land, I guess. And uh there were some parts of the state where it was like 115 for days. Oh my god. Yeah, it wasn't quite that. I think it got up to you know 105, 106 here. But the worst part of it, you we get that heat from time to time, but this was very humid. So we had these excessive heat warnings for like a week straight. It was miserable. So yeah, this was something in terms of heat that I was wrestling with in the past couple of weeks and folks all across Texas and the South where this was happening. But also, we've had this Canadian wildfire smoke that's been spreading across Canada and the United States. So I felt like, you know, we talked about this. This is a very timely topic, and I know it's something you've experienced living in in San Francisco in terms of wildfires as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Well, you know, San Francisco here, we're in our own little protective bubble. So we're rarely uh too much affected by heat or smoke or anything. It's a magical little place, except for the fact that it's cold and foggy all summer long. But uh actually, we have an interesting um, I guess, weather pattern as well, where the high pressure inland sucks cold air from across the ocean into San Francisco and usually keeps the smoke out in the eastern part of the state. However, occasionally it has come into town and uh it's weird. Like a couple of years ago, they had this eerie, like red glow. You barely even saw the sun. So yeah, it does hit hit here occasionally.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yeah, it looks apocalyptic, and that's what was happening in places like New York and and Toronto and other cities across the Northeast in the past few weeks, and it's still ongoing with these wildfires. So I mean, it's so that we thought this was a really timely topic. I mean, it's even to the point up there where people are masking up again. Dare we talk about that on the podcast again? I think we should. Yeah, well, let's let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah, well, let's start about talking about, let's well, let's start by talking about outdoor exercise and the heat, since that's something we both have quite a bit of experience with. I, of course, am from Texas, though I live in San Francisco now. And, you know, I guess the question is, can you exercise in the brutal Texas heat? And the answer is yes, but with quite a few caveats. Um, heat adaptation is something that's been very well studied over the years, and the findings are pretty straightforward. Uh, you might not be surprised, Alex, that the military the military's done quite a bit of research on this since soldiers don't really have a choice but to exert themselves in the heat, right? So I found an article called in an in a book called Nutritional Needs in Hot Environments, Applications for Military Personnel in Field Operations, and it breaks it down very simply, saying, quote, humans often exercise strenuously in hot environments for reasons of recreation, vocation, and survival. You know, it's just something we've had to adapt to over the centuries and millennia. So, how well we're able to do that depends on three things, according to the article, our acclimatization, which I always want to call acclimation, but it's actually acclimatization. Uh, that's how well we've adapted to heat stress, our aerobic fitness, and of course our hydration level. We all know about drinking more when it's hot outside. I think, you know, PSAs and such have really uh hammered that message home. But I think the two things that may be less well known are that exercising in the heat dramatically increases the strain on your heart. So you'll need to lower your intensity to compensate for the fact that your heart's working twice as hard to both keep you cool and maintain whatever activity you're doing. Have you had that experience?

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Yeah, absolutely. And I know you and I used to go running at lunch at work some days and it would be 98 degrees. And so, yeah, I think living in Texas, this is just uh reality. Maybe not the best to go out at noon in the in the in the heat of the day and do this, but sometimes you just you just do it. And this is really interesting subject for me as well, the acclimatization. I think having lived here all my life, I feel like I'm relatively well adapted to the heat. And I never really thought much about it until I married someone who's from England, where it's not this hot generally. So I see that difference when we're exercising this time of year. She really doesn't like it. Um, and this is something we often talk about, just be you know, how like I'm just able to go out and do these runs or bike rides when it's super hot, and maybe she can't quite keep up with the pace that I'm doing or something like that in the heat. So I think this is something that can be a lifelong thing. And you and I have talked about the heat acclimation because we also feel like there's kind of a yearly bent to this where as it starts to get hotter, your body acclimates to the the summer. And I know one thing I've noticed about that, which is really weird, like once I'm well acclimated to the heat for the summer in Texas, it's like my body automatically responds to any sort of exertion. Like I could be like vacuuming in the house and I feel my body temperature rise. Yeah. It's weird. It's almost like my body temperature rises more quickly once I'm acclimated to the heat, which is really weird. And I have no idea what the research is behind that, but it's something you and I have noticed and talked about in the past.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah, actually, I read about this. I was obsessed with this topic actually when I lived in Texas, the whole idea of heat acclimatization. Um, and what happens is your body learns to respond more quickly to heat. So all of a sudden you go through all the things that happen to help you keep cool, which is sweating more, um, you know, your blood rushing to the surface of your skin where it can be cooled faster. And I remember when I lived in Texas, it had really the annoying effect, kind of like what you're saying, Alex, where I would just start sweating. You know, even if I'm like you said, like vacuuming or whatever, whatever, my body's like, okay, it's about to get really hot. So let's just start pouring out sweat, which, you know, depending on the social situation, it's not really the most pleasant thing.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

So yeah, that's right. So yeah, it's it's an interesting thing that that happens. If I'd be curious to hear if other people have noticed this who are listening to the podcast who live in hot climates, but yeah, it's a real thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah, me too. And then the second thing I wanted to point out that I learned um when I was kind of obsessed with this topic is that exercising in the heat, it may also increase your need for carbs while you're working out. And um this is particularly relevant for endurance athletes, whether runners or long-distance cyclones. An article in Rutter's World summarized the research on this, saying that not only does running in the heat increase your intensity, obviously, which increases the carb to fat ratio, but it also increases the carb to fat ratio even at the same intensity. So basically what they're saying is that running in the heat requires more carbs than you might be used to, particularly over long distances. And I'm sure the same goes for cycling. So that means you can hit the wall a lot faster, basically, without even knowing it.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yeah, yeah, totally. So both these points, I mean, I went off on a tangent there about act acclimatization, but um your heart rate definitely goes up faster in it goes higher and it goes up more quickly in the heat. And I especially see that when I'm running, like in the heat. That happened to me just the other day when I went out for like a three-mile run. It wasn't as hot as it's been, but it was still hot, it was still humid. I wanted to do a fast pace, and after the first mile, it's it's up really high. Uh yeah, and then this need for carbs, like if you're doing a long bike ride or something in the summer, you know, it's best to carry a snack with you because yeah, you need you need that fuel uh and you need it pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, I I think the hardest thing for me when I was running in the heat was it was really hard for me to admit that I had to adjust my intensity level in order to be able to do that. You know, I really didn't want to, I wanted to be able to keep the same pace, and there was just no possible way. And really it would have been dangerous to do so. So at some point I just had to accept that if I wanted to run at noon on a summer day, I probably was gonna have to take it down a notch or two.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Yeah, and I think a tip for this is if you live in these types of climates, like wear uh wear either a heart rate monitor or a smartwatch because that is what made me more aware of just how much my heart level would spike in the heat when I was doing a strenuous effort. And I realized since I started wearing that, you know, a health device that, hey, I need to back off on my intensity because like I'm maxing out my heart rate. I mean, before I just had this mentality of like, I don't want to know, right? So yeah, now I realize, oh wow, like you're getting up pretty high towards max heart rate. You might want to back off. So I think that's just a general tip for people who live in these types of climates to like always be watching your heart rate if you are exercising outside in the heat.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

That is an excellent point, Alex. But you know, heat isn't the only challenge during these dog days of summer. There's also the issue of air quality, which can really be a challenge this time of year, depending on where you live. So, Alex, I know that you have kind of a special interest in meteorology, so I wanted to hear what you know about air quality.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah, I'm a bit of a weather nerd. Like, I wanted to major in this in college, I didn't end up doing it. Long story. But yeah, this is an interesting subject to me. And again, I think it's something that's really a concern here recently for folks who are living in the Northeast with the Canadian wildfires. And so when it comes to air quality, the easiest thing to look at is what's called AQI or the air quality index. And the easiest way to find this is just to go out on the internet, go to airnow.gov for our U.S. listeners, which is a website run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, NOAA, which is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Park Service, NASA, the CDC, tribal state, local air quality agencies. Basically, everyone in the government in the U.S. who has a stake or an interest in air quality, they have created this site. And so they have this really great yeah, it's it's very impressive. And so they have this great interactive map that shows the AQI in your area, and you can see different aspects of this because you can get more technical with what you're looking at, but we're just gonna stick to this AQI today. Um, I've also noticed that on the smartphones now, they're starting to serve this up like in just your default weather app. Like if you have an iPhone, um, I know it's it's on there. So that's that's another place that you might look for this. Uh, so what is AQI? It it's basically a simplified system that uses colors and numbers to tell you about the air quality. And it can give you a really quick read on the air quality and give you a sense of like, hey, do I want to go outside in this or should I should I stay indoors? And so for me, this is something I've become familiar with since I moved to Dallas Fort Worth. We're the fourth largest metro area in the United States. And especially in the summer, you know, we do have a lot of cars here. There and a lot of industry in the in the region. Jen, you used to live down in the heart of that industry when you lived in DFW. There was some sucking airs and all this quality and yeah, it would blow it blows up into the Metroplex from the south, a lot of the from a lot of the industry. But again, you have cars and all that. So we often have bad air quality days in the summer. And for me, I've noticed that it does affect my breathing when I'm exercising. So I always try to look at this and make sure I'm on top of it. And there's the scale's really pretty simple. It has numbers and colors, and then a word that describes each sort of level. So if the AQI is zero to 50, that's green, that's good. 51 to 100, yellow, that's moderate. 101 to 150, that's orange. That's unhealthy for sensitive groups, which I'll explain in a moment. And then after that, you start to get into these unhealthier levels. Red is unhealthy, purple is very unhealthy, maroon is hazardous, and this thing goes all the way up to 500. I mean, I've never seen a maroon. I don't even think I've seen a purple here. I don't know what it would take to get to that. And I don't think they've even gotten to that with the Canadian wildfires. So I'm kind of afraid to know what would have to be in the air to have that sort of uh air quality.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Yeah, I would wonder about that too, because I've never seen that as well. I was just while you were talking, I was looking up our own air quality. We're at 43 right now, so we're in the green good zone, which is typical for San Francisco.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah, and I think we're also in the green or yellow today in Dallas, which is pretty good for the summers. So uh I've been outside today and it was nice. I I wanted to go more in depth into the scale and talk about that orange level, which is the one that I see most often around here when we have a bad air quality day, and you might as well, especially if you're living in a larger city or metro area. So that's 101 to 150 unhealthy for sensitive groups. So you might say, well, what is a sensitive group? And I've always kind of wondered this as well. So I dug more into it for the podcast. Uh, airnow.gov describes this as people who are sensitive to pollution, people with asthma, and children. And so, you know, I think I'm probably a little sensitive to pollution. This may happen to you if you cough when the air quality is at orange or worse. If you even feel things like tightness in your chest or discomfort with when you breathe, uh, you could be sensitive to air pollution. And again, if you're having these types of symptoms, even if it's on a bad air quality day, like you probably need to talk to your doctor just to double check that it's not something else. But that is how Air Now describes unhealthy for sensitive groups. I also checked out the American Lung Association's information on this, and they kind of add to this category. They note that the elderly, even people who work for long periods outdoors or people who exercise frequently outside, like us, Jen, can be at risk to feel the effects of air pollution simply because we're outside more often. And you can imagine if you're working in, say, construction, you would be outside all day long. So the American Lung Association advises you to adjust your outdoor plans when the air quality is orange or worse. And their guidance really seems primarily focused on minimizing short-term negative effects of bad air quality. So, you know, I I mentioned that I've felt this. Jen, have you ever felt those types of effects when the air quality is bad?

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Yes, absolutely. So I have asthma. It's pretty mild and well managed. But I remember specifically when I lived in Dallas, uh, exercising on orange and even some of the red days. I know we'd go at lunchtime runs when it was red, and I would feel that definite tightness of my chest. And it was just really hard to, you know, exert the effort to run. So in those days, it probably, for me particularly, would have been better to stay indoors.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Yeah, so let's talk a little bit more about that. And again, the red days are pretty rare. So what I usually see is like yellow or orange around here, and orange is when I start to pay attention to it. And they're really good about even putting it on the big signs on the highways here, so you notice it if you're driving. But I thought, well, there's got to be some research on this, right? And sure enough, there is. There's a recent study, and it's called Acute Effects of Short-Term Exposure to Air Pollution While Being Physically Active, The Potential for Modification, a review of the literature. And so this is this is a big review of several studies, and it looked at whether it was safe to exercise when there's bad air pollution. And so I'll just read you the findings from the article because they speak for themselves and they're really interesting. Quote: Nine articles identified evidence of statistical interaction between air pollution exposure and physical activity, while 16 identified no such interaction. However, pollutant levels, exercise intensity in the population studied appeared to influence statistical interaction. So, in other words, yes, if you're outside exercising in the pollution, there were some findings that you can have short-term effects from this. And it also depended like, are you a sensitive group? Do you have asthma? Do you have other health conditions? You know, for example, lung conditions. And continuing on, even in low levels of air pollution, low intensity activities, for example, walking, may intensify the negative impacts of air pollution, particularly among those with pre-existing conditions. And we're all familiar with that term from the pandemic. Now, this is a part I really want to emphasize. However, among healthy adults, the review suggests that exercise is generally beneficial even in high air pollution environments. Particularly, the review indicates that moderate to high intensity exercise may neutralize any short-term negative effects of air pollution. So the way I interpret that is yes, there may be some short-term negative impacts to you from exercising in a high pollution environment, but overall, exercise is still beneficial to you, even going outside, even on bad air quality days, and it outweighs the risk of exercising on those types of days. So the one thing they do note with the study is want, want, want more research is needed.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Oh, yes, our favorite term.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Yeah. So I mean it's really up to you to make your own decision on this. My personal take is that I still exercise outside on these orange days, for example. Uh, I might back off the intensity if I'm not feeling good. Uh, because I have felt, you know, too. Sometimes I get the coughing or maybe a little bit of shortness of breath that makes it harder to breathe when there's a lot of stuff in the air. I have the same problem with pollen. So to me, it's not much different. Uh, but for me, I personally would still prefer exercising outdoors on a bad air quality day compared to going indoors and riding on the indoor bike or doing a treadmill run or something of that nature. But again, I'm talking about the orange days. So maybe not red, definitely not purple in maroon, which again I've never seen that. Uh, what it would take to do that, maybe like radiation. I think which like I don't want to find out. Uh and you know, some of the even the recent wildfires, I went and looked at the air quality index for you know, New York, Toronto, which were some of the hardest hit cities, and you know, they were in that orange to to red zone. Um, the nothing got above the red.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Oh, wow. Willie. I was curious about that too when we were looking at the scale.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah, so let's talk about that. Let's talk about this smoke aspect because usually when we're thinking about bad air quality is it's just general pollution in cities from industry and from cars and all that. Um, so what about this smoke, Jen? What to do about that? Should you go outside and exercise when there's a bunch of wildfire smoke in the air?

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Yeah, that's a really good question. I grew up thinking of air quality really in relation to ozone, but smoke has become an increasing problem in California, Colorado, where my sisters live, and many other parts of the country. We now have what we call fire season here in Northern California, and where we pretty predictably have big wildfires, uh power outages, you know, all kinds of things related to that. Though, as I said, San Francisco is usually sheltered by this very peculiar weather pattern that we have here. But whether the smoke is caused by, or whether the air pollution is caused by wildfire, smoke, or ozone, the quality guidelines you mentioned are generally the same, with the caveat that, you know, people like with asthma or underlying health conditions like you mentioned might need to exercise more caution on hazy days. But I found this really good article in the Washington Post, and it suggested, and this goes right along with what you said earlier, Alex, that if you're going to do an outdoor workout, you should keep your workouts, quote, short and sharp rather than long and slow. And there I'm quoting Michael Coley, director of the Environmental Physiology Laboratory at the University of British Columbia. He has done some research on this, and in a 2014 study, he and his colleagues tested the lung function of cyclists while they alternately rode slowly or intensely in polluted air. And unexpectedly, the riders experienced more difficulties breathing while riding gently than when they pedaled all out. And he himself said the the findings were surprising and they don't know exactly why, but they think it had to do with just reducing the overall exposure level and perhaps those beneficial aspects that high-intensity exercise could have. So it's really interesting. And, you know, back to the more study is needed, but I think it's an area where they might, you know, learn more over time.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah, and I saw very similar guidance in terms of keeping it shorter and maybe faster if you're running, for example, or cycling, as opposed to long and slow. So that seems to be a theme. It would make sense at a very high level, you know, that you're reducing the time that you're exposed to the pollutants, right? So, um, and I I read a lot on this this week as well. The news media have spilled a lot of digital ink on the subject recently with the wildfires, and they just continue to burn, right? So the New York Times also covered this given the proximity of New York to the wildfires. And the experts quoted in the article that I read from the New York Times basically said you should avoid exercising outside on days when the smoke tips into the red or unhealthy category. Uh, they even cited a study that looked at people who are frequently inhaling diesel exhaust. Uh, I don't know how they actually I didn't dive into this study, I just looked at what they said in the article, right? Sounds like a bad idea. Yeah, I don't think I would want to do that. But they said that pollutant is very similar to wildfire smoke. And so that study posited that continual exposure to diesel exhaust over time, and again, the key word is over time, could cause blood pressure andor other cardiovascular problems. So I would point out that while that sounds alarmist, we obviously don't have wildfire smoke in the air year round, uh, or generally, you know, for the Vast majority of the year, right? Right. Um so the other thing I found interesting about this, since we're on the subject of smoke, is that there's another trend here in recent weeks, and it's it's controversial. It's about people wearing masks again when they're outside because of all the smoke in the air. So uh you know, the the mask debate continues. I guess it sets people off on either side, which we're not gonna comment on. No, we don't dare. I mean, judging any mask debates. Oh my gosh. Like uh, but um I do remember like when it made me think back to early 2020 at the very onset of the pandemic, and when we didn't really know how coronavirus spread, right? Like you just thought I could go outside, and you know, I'm very health anxious. I'm like, I don't want to be part of this. Uh I just thought like I could be outside and walk by somebody and get it, which as we know now is like highly unlikely, right? Right. It takes more extended exposure. But I remember like at the very beginning of the pandemic, I was like exercising outside in a mask.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Oh, yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

If I went walking or running in the park, or even like I did it riding my bike, which like it's hilarious to think about now. And I even ordered this mask from uh Amazon, I remember. And so I thought, well, let's let's look into the science behind this. And so, yes, very clear studies show that an N95 mask, for example, can filter out some of these harmful pollutants that we've been talking about today, the uh even you know, wildfire smoke and and other things that are in the air from general pollution. But the thing to remember about that, um, if you choose to do that, is that exercising with a mask isn't easy. And Runners World had even written an article about this during the onset of the pandemic. I thought it was interesting because at the top of the article, it's sort of like a digital relic. It said, the situation is rapidly changing, you know, it's like May of 2020 or something. Uh and so this is when people, especially in like highly populated areas like New York, for example, were out exercising with masks on. The thing about this is it restricts your ability to breathe and it increases your heart rate if you're exercising with a mask on. So interestingly, that can give you some benefits over time from a cardio standpoint. And of course, there are even people who train in masks as like a training technique, right, um, for the additional cardiovascular challenge, but I don't think that's something that you would do all the time generally, and it's not something I'd want to do all the time. Um, I hated doing it when I tried it during the pandemic. So I remember being relieved when they basically said, no, you can go outside, you'll be fine. Uh the other thing about it is according to the science, the water vapor that you're exhaling inside the mask will damp, make the inside of the mask damp over the course of the workout. So that actually can make the mask less effective in terms of filtering out these pollutants. So just thought we'd touch on that today because it's been a big debate here recently.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

So, what we've learned today is that you can exercise in the heat, but you need to take it a little bit slower and you might need some more carbs. And you can exercise on poor air quality days, but you want to probably limit your exposure. And also, we're talking about orange or red zones, not the really scary what maroon and purple zones beyond that.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Yeah, and even if people are really sensitive, probably a no-go on the red. Yeah, but the orange seems to be fine based on the research.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

And of course, if you have any type of pre-existing health conditions like asthma or emphysema, all these types of things, you'd want to check with a doctor before even considering that amount of exercise in poor air quality.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Yeah, absolutely. So learned a lot on this subject today. Hopefully, it was valuable for folks, especially if you live in a hot climate. Uh, if you've been in the heat dome, if you're being impacted by wildfire smoke, which seems to be, at this point, like all of the United States at some point or another. So um, we thought this was a really timely topic. And uh, I know, I know I learned a lot on the show today. So that's it for this edition of the podcast. As always, head on over to practically.fit. You can sign up for our newsletter, get our content into your inbox on a weekly basis. You can also comment on the podcast, share your stories. Uh, you can shoot me an email at alex at practically. Fitness is for everybody.