Physical Activity and Work Out Capacity After Recovery from COVID-19 Infection

Exercise capacity after COVID-19 recovery

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is a current worldwide healthcare challenge with a well-documented negative socioeconomic impact. Several long-term complications have been reported particularly in severely infected patients. Lockdowns and prolonged home staying periods greatly affected the physical fitness and general heath state. This cross-sectional self-report study aimed to investigate the long-term effect on physical activity and exercising after recovery from COVID-19. 271 participants enrolled in the study by completing a survey with questions about their workout habits, duration of training sessions, and rest periods required for recovery in-between sessions, in addition to sleeping hours, eating healthy food or snacks, taking multivitamins, and patterns of sporting. After recovery from COVID-19 infection, there was a general tendency towards decrease in the capacity of exercising, prolonged muscle recovery time, extended hours required between exercising sessions, while the number of participants who use multivitamins was significantly increased. In contrary, there was no statistically significant difference before and after COVID-19 infection regarding sleeping patterns, cigarette consuming, self-rating of physical fitness, and self-rating of eating healthy food. Collectively, the long-term effects of COVID-19 involved limited exercising ability and capacity; the issue that shall encourage both physically and non-physically active people to continue or start physical fitness in order to improve their health status through the boosting of immunovigilance.