Asthma

**captncharlie** · Posted On: 10/14/2008 10:13am

Recently I had a pulmonary test done, and it showed that I have mild asthma. While I am on some medicine to help things along, I was wondering if anyone else in this forum had ever encountered problems with asthma, and what you can do to help yourself out, especially in regards to cardio.

**MaverickZ** · Posted On: 10/14/2008 10:20am

I have a form of exercise induced asthma. It gets better with more training, I've had it since I started martial arts fifteen years ago. Though I think that has more to do with the body adjusting to the exercise and becoming more efficient at it, rather than any sort of lung related physical changes. So I would suggest plenty of road work, but road work specific to the activities you plan to participate in.

To compensate for it in martial arts, I've had to really be very mindful of efficiency of motion and relaxing, in both striking and grappling. I have found that the asthma has actually helped me in progressing in jiujitsu, if only because it has forced me to be relaxed during rolling. A strange side effect but I'll take it. Plus if you learn to work around it, it's a weird tactical tool in competition.

**Goju - Joe** · Posted On: 10/14/2008 10:22am

^^^

Everything he said also re exercise induced Asthma I found it hits me on hot muggy days, and taking a preventative anti-histamine helps as well

**sochin101** · Posted On: 10/14/2008 10:26am

I don't have asthma, but my wife does, and hers stops her doing all but the most gentle of activities.
Her brother has asthma, and plays soccer at a highly competitive level and just needs his inhalers before, after and at half time.

Hopefully your mild asthma won't require much other than the usual oral inhalers and it won't affect your MA training.

You may have been asthmatic for a while without realising it. Were you active and was your cardio ok before you had the test?

Anyway, your limits will perhaps be lower than others... learn them and don't push beyond what's reasonably sane.

Good luck.

**PointyShinyBurn** · Posted On: 10/14/2008 10:29am

You might want to experiment a bit with your drug combinations. Get a peak flow meter and graph what happens if you use different inhalers/doses etc.

Do -not- train without your 'reliever' nearby (even if you don't choose/need to use it before class).

**captncharlie** · Posted On: 10/14/2008 10:36am

Originally Posted by sochin101

I don't have asthma, but my wife does, and hers stops her doing all but the most gentle of activities.
Her brother has asthma, and plays soccer at a highly competitive level and just needs his inhalers before, after and at half time.

Hopefully your mild asthma won't require much other than the usual oral inhalers and it won't affect your MA training.

You may have been asthmatic for a while without realising it. Were you active and was your cardio ok before you had the test?

Anyway, your limits will perhaps be lower than others... learn them and don't push beyond what's reasonably sane.

Good luck.

When I was very young I had it really bad and hadn't noticed it for around 10-13 years but now that I've been doing more cardio and lifting more, it's become more noticeable as the distance I run and the speed at which I run it increase. I was active before I had the test, but only for about a year and a half beforehand did I start doing any kind of training.

Like you say, hopefully it'll be manageable, especially considering I can still run and lift as it was. The only thing is it seems like it was getting worse so maybe I'm just hitting a physical wall I need to work through or maybe the drugs will help. I'll just have to wait and see.