While receiving oxygen therapy, you can lead an active lifestyle. In fact, to enhance your quality of life, you should keep active. When performing simple tasks, weak muscles may require extra oxygen, which may cause breathlessness.
Exercise is crucial if you have COPD because it keeps your muscles strong and makes it easier to carry out regular tasks. While exercising while using oxygen is not always the simplest thing to do, there are some beneficial workouts you can do with ease. Prior to beginning a new workout regimen, be sure to consult with your doctor.
Exercise with Oxygen Therapy (EWOT)
The goal of exercise with oxygen therapy is to breathe higher concentrations of oxygen during exercise. To do this, you can use home oxygen concentrators?to increase purity. Wearing a mask or nasal cannula allows someone to exercise with oxygen and breathe in the high-purity oxygen from the machine while using a treadmill, stepper, or any other type of exercise equipment.
Why You Should Exercise with Oxygen Therapy
Although the oxygen in the air we breathe is already present, in order for our bodies to function, the air must be broken down and the pure oxygen must be absorbed. The body’s natural absorption rate is accelerated by pure oxygen, which has numerous benefits for the body and mind.
- Increasing levels of energy
- Mood improvement
- Concentration improvement
- Stress reduction
- Headache relief
- Improving athletic and sports performance
- Enhancing sleep
Using a home oxygen concentrator while exercising is one of the ways to increase one’s health and well-being by using pure oxygen. Your veins, arteries, and capillaries will quickly receive oxygen thanks to exercise with oxygen treatment, which improves circulation.
While you exercise, saturating your blood with pure oxygen can also help your body’s tissues, blood vessels, and organs function more effectively. Your body can recover from injuries more quickly with improved circulation and saturation.
Keep an oxygen concentrator nearby your workout equipment, whether it be a portable one or a home one. Make sure the hose on your nasal cannula or mask is long enough to allow you to move about freely while using the device. Make sure to breathe through your nose and pay attention to your breathing. Instead of using pulse settings, try setting the oxygen concentrator to continuous flow.
How to Recognize Low Oxygen Levels During Exercise
Your body needs a lot more oxygen while you work out, so you need to restore it quickly. Your breathing and heart rate pick up in response, allowing more oxygen to reach your muscles and the tissues around them.
However, your body’s capacity to absorb oxygen is compromised if you have a persistent respiratory condition like COPD. Because your lungs cannot adequately absorb oxygen when you have COPD, even routine tasks like taking out the garbage or washing the car might leave you feeling winded and exhausted.
Your heart must pump considerably harder to receive enough oxygen during exercise if you also have a concomitant cardiac disease like congestive heart failure or a trial fibrillation. Additionally, if your blood oxygen levels are low, your heart is put under more strain.
The Best Home Oxygen Concentrator Exercise
It is important to use a portable oxygen concentrator while exercising. Because a POC (Portable Oxygen Concentrator) allows for more mobility than a tank, you?ll still need to overcome some challenges.
? Breathing Exercise
Take some time to build up your breathing muscles and teach your body to breathe more easily before you go into a workout, especially if it’s been a while since your last trip to the gym. Spend five to ten minutes each time performing these two workouts.
? Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercise
Kneel down while lying on your back. Grasp your abdomen with one hand and your chest with the other. Take three deep breaths while attempting to raise the hand on your stomach while keeping the hand on your chest motionless. Your stomach muscles should be tightened, and you should slowly exhale.
? Leg Exercise
Try doing some simple leg workouts that don’t involve moving around a lot. Your routine should include calf lifts. Hold onto a sturdy chair for support as you stand six inches behind it. After taking a breath, carefully exhale while lifting yourself up onto your toes. As you take a deep breath, bring your heels back to the ground.
Try using leg extensions to build stronger thighs. Inhale and exhale while you extend one leg at a time as straight as you can without locking your knee, sitting on a chair that supports your back appropriately. Add ankle weights if it becomes too simple.
? Arm Exercise
You can perform a variety of arm exercises while using oxygen. Your arm muscles will develop faster by performing arm curls with small weights. Breathe in as you pull the weights toward your chest while keeping your elbows down, and then gently let out your breath. Bring your arms back down as you take a breath in.
Try doing triceps extensions to strengthen your shoulders. With a dumbbell in each hand, just lay flat on a bench or yoga mat. Extend your arms slowly until they are above your head. Slowly lower the weights towards your shoulders while bending at the elbows, then stop. To make sure you are isolating your triceps muscle during the exercise, try to maintain your elbows as still as you can.
? Experiment with Lip Breathing
This exercise can be performed in any position. Relax your shoulders and neck, and take a deep breath through your nostrils (with your mouth closed). Next, purse your lips and take a four-second to exhale. The usual guideline is to exhale for twice as long as you inhale. This should assist you in maintaining a constant heart rate if you do it while working out.
Safety Tips for Exercise with Oxygen Therapy
? Take your doctor’s advice.
To find out if you are physically capable of receiving this kind of therapy, consult your doctor. If there are any health concerns, it is recommended to check the heart rate and blood pressure after the first 15 minutes. While working out with oxygen treatment, be sure to dress comfortably and loosely.
? Check your equipment
A constant flow of oxygen is necessary for exercise. Check your equipment to make sure everything is working properly before you start to sweat. Check your oxygen mask, nasal cannula, and tubing in small areas. Make sure the oxygen source is connected securely to everything.
Additionally, keep in mind to recharge any portable equipment’s batteries to prevent device failure during an exercise.
? Inhale through your nose
The majority of people who use supplemental oxygen prefer nasal cannulas over face masks because they are more comfortable to wear. However, it is much more crucial to pay attention to your breathing while exercising. Although breathing through your nose is not natural, wearing a nasal cannula makes it easier because oxygen is given through your nose first.
Conclusion
Being on oxygen shouldn’t prevent you from leading an active life because of the comfort of the portable oxygen concentrators that are readily available nowadays. Additionally, depending on your oxygen concentrator, your doctor might advise you to adjust the oxygen flow rate when exercising.
As the editor of the blog, She curate insightful content that sparks curiosity and fosters learning. With a passion for storytelling and a keen eye for detail, she strive to bring diverse perspectives and engaging narratives to readers, ensuring every piece informs, inspires, and enriches.
