I’m asthmatic

I’m asthmatic. This was literally my favourite excuse growing up as a kit.

Ok class we’re going to do the 100m sprints today. No sir not me I have asthma.

Let’s go play football. I’ll be goalie because I have asthma.

CJ you’re quite a big kid. Yeah, but I have asthma so I can’t run around, and my asthma pump makes me fat. Nothing I can do about it, whilst eating a bag of crisps or chocolate or maybe both to be honest.

Honestly it was a great excuse, I probably used it every day for something as a kid and nobody would ever question you. And if they did question me, I would just start breathing heavy. Now part of this was me lazy, I hated walking, never done much exercise, and loved eating food. But also, when your mum says be careful running around out there, I don’t want you to have an asthma attack, or the doctors tell you that your asthma is getting worse so you need stronger inhalers the excuse does start to become a part of your reality and you really do believe you can’t do things because you are asthmatic.

Now I am not blaming anyone first of all besides myself, I was a PlayStation fanatic who loved food. Exercise not so much. But in reality, I was just uneducated on the matter. To put asthma very simply it means you have breathing problems, your airways become constricted, and you can’t regulate your breathing properly. Being overweight meant that I was also putting more stress on my body to operate efficiently. However, when we exercise our cardiovascular system, we increase our cardiovascular fitness and cardiorespiratory health. By doing this we increase our body’s ability to pump blood and oxygen around the body therefore we would aid the body’s ability to manage asthma

I am not saying exercise cures asthma, but it most defiantly helps. I am also not recommending that if you have asthma to go out and start running as everybody is different. Consult your doctor first before undertaking a training programme.

For me exercising helps. So much so that in my opinion I no longer have asthma. I have not been to an asthma clinic in well over 10 years and I have not had a asthma attack in even longer. I have had to use a pump on the odd occasion here and there, but they are rare circumstances (we’re talking 5 times in the last 10 years). Since I started training I have competed nationally in rowing, competed nationally in Olympic weight lifting, completed a marathon on a rowing machine, hiked mountains, played rugby and been on hours long cycling adventures.

All of these things at some point I was told would be impossible for me because my asthma was so bad. I decided that wasn’t the life for me and I wanted to be fitter and feel better about myself. I have achieved all of these things. Lots of trial and error. Slow start at the beginning getting my body adapted to the changes but I can stand here and say it was all worth it.

I have completely changed my life simply by training regularly for the past 13 years of my life. This is the message I want to spread to others through 310 Fitness. You can always male changes for the better through hard work but you need to be willing to put in the effort to do so.

When you are willing to take the step to make yourself feel better than I am here to help.

Control the controllable