The Effects of Wearing Facemasks during Vigorous Exercise in the Aspect of Cardiopulmonary Response, In-Mask Environment, and Subject Discomfort

Non-pharmaceutical intervention such as wearing a mask during the pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 is one of the most important ways to prevent the spread of the virus. However, despite high effectiveness and easy to access, the biggest problem is ‘discomfort’. The purpose of this study was to measure the cha...

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Published inInternational journal of environmental research and public health Vol. 19; no. 21; p. 14106
Main Authors Hong, Juntaek, Byun, Juahn, Choi, Joong-on, Shim, Dain, Rha, Dong-wook
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Switzerland MDPI AG 28.10.2022
MDPI
Subjects
Adult
Carbon dioxide
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
COVID-19 - prevention & control
Exercise
Experiments
Gait
Heart rate
Humans
Humidity
Male
Masks
Oxygen saturation
Pandemics - prevention & control
SARS-CoV-2
Variables
Walking
in-mask environment
cardiopulmonary
high intensity exercise
facemask
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Summary:Non-pharmaceutical intervention such as wearing a mask during the pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 is one of the most important ways to prevent the spread of the virus. However, despite high effectiveness and easy to access, the biggest problem is ‘discomfort’. The purpose of this study was to measure the changes of cardiopulmonary response and related factors affecting breathing discomfort when wearing a mask during vigorous exercise. Fifteen healthy male adults participated in this study. The experimental protocol consisted of three conditions: no mask; KF-94 mask; and sports mask. Each condition consisted of three stages: stage I, 2 m/s on even level; stage II, 2 m/s with 5° inclination; and stage III, 3 m/s on even level. Oxygen saturation (SaO2) and heart rate (HR), partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2), energy expenditure index (EEI), in-mask temperature, humidity, and a five-point scale questionnaire to evaluate subjective discomfort were measured. The results show that there was a significantly higher discomfort score in mask conditions compared with no mask (p < 0.05) and only pCO2 change significantly related to subjective discomfort during exercise (p < 0.05). Moreover, the pCO2 washout was significantly disturbed when wearing a sports mask in stages 2 and 3, which was related to wearer subjective discomfort
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These authors contributed equally to this work.
ISSN:1660-4601
1661-7827
1660-4601
DOI:10.3390/ijerph192114106