Tips to Exercise Safely
Posted on August 18, 2014
We run a group fitness class of ‘older’ adult women, last week I noticed one of them wasn’t feeling well, she was pausing a lot between exercises and periodically holding the wall, so I asked her how she was doing and she said she was feeling dizzy, nauseous, flushed, sweaty, was experiencing mild chest pain and was having trouble breathing. We asked her to sit down and rest for a minute to see if the symptoms would pass. After about 5 minutes she said they had (we suspected otherwise but took her word for it). She tried one repetition of one exercise and all the symptoms came back immediately. It was at this point we said she needed to go to the hospital right away. Her response was ‘I just need to have a nap’. We promptly said ‘no someone will take you’. Then she said ‘I don’t want to waste their time’, followed by ‘let me go get changed I’m too sweaty, followed by I’m going to be fine’. If you ever experience 3 or more of the above listed symptoms, you need to go to the hospital right away. You are never wasting anyone’s time. Hospital staff are paid to help people with medical emergencies. It’s their job. Never worry about how you look, hospital staff do not care and if a serious emergency happens they will have to cut your clothes off anyway. Do you really want your tombstone to read ‘Would be alive today if she hadn’t stopped to do her hair on her way to the hospital’.
Follow these 3 tips to exercise safely:
1. Always listen to your body
2. Never hide from people if something doesn’t feel right
3. Always go to the hospital if you’re in doubt
Our client did go to the hospital and found out she suffers from atrial fibrillation, which thankfully is treatable.
She is cleared to come to class on Tuesday and neither one of us can wait!
