Can I Go to the Gym During the Coronavirus Crisis?

What is a gym rat to do in the time of COVID-19? Just think of all those people in there... sweating... breathing wetly... touching their faces. Even if you're a perfectly healthy person, you want to be a responsible citizen. You totally get social distancing, avoiding large gatherings and close contact with other people. It's about flattening the curve, slowing the spread of a disease to a bunch of other people, not just you. You don't want other people to get sick because you decided you couldn't skip leg day. So you should skip leg day, right?

Not necessarily. "I still go to the gym," says infectious disease doctor Saskia Popescu, who works as an epidemiologist at HonorHealth, a health system in Phoenix, Arizona. She says if you're careful, you can too. Obvious caveat: If you're showing symptoms or immune-compromised in any way, please stay home. But if you're healthy and practice some good sanitary habits? A ramped-up version of the stuff you were probably doing before gym is not necessarily off-limits.

More specifically, use your good judgment when it comes to maintaining social distance (six feet between yourself and the next person), cleaning your equipment, and avoiding touching your face. A cramped yoga class is a bad idea; same goes for the weight machine where you saw someone coughing up a storm. If getting there means something like a crowded subway ride, it's also probably a bad idea. But otherwise, don't rule out a simple trip to get a workout if you just remember your basic infection prevention strategies. Wipe down your gym equipment before and after you use it-you can bring your own disinfecting wipes if you're not sure about the strength of the stuff your gym provides.

Of course, an indoor gym is not your only option. You can work out at home, and the great outdoors are fun and enable better social distancing. But please do keep working out, no matter where you choose to do it. "Right now a lot of people are experiencing a lot of stress and fear because they're so inundated with information, and mental health is a big deal," Popescu says. "So working out does play into that, and it's just about being smart and safe."

If this all sounds low-key for a pandemic situation, it's because playing your role in an epidemic really is mostly about common sense. Aside from social distancing, which is a typical outbreak response, this is stuff we should always be doing so we don't spread any other disease in our daily lives. "We should have all already been wiping stuff down and washing our hands and not going to work when we're sick." Popescu says. "Hopefully this will be a learning moment for most people, and it's that piece that's going to help break the chain of transmission."