Comparison of the effect of wearing medical and Cloth masks during exercise on pulmonary function in healthy young men during the epidemic of Covid-19

One of the safety methods to prevent the spread of covid-19 is to use a mask. The aim of the current research was to compare the effect of wearing medical and Cloth masks during exercise on lung function in healthy young men during the covid-19 epidemic.

In this semi-experimental research, 40 healthy men (average age 29.40 years, average height 175.30 cm, average weight 73.37 kg, and body mass index 23.56 kg/m2) were selected by purposive sampling method and randomly placed in 4 groups of activity with medical mask, activity with Cloth mask, activity without mask and control. Pulmonary function was measured using a spirometer. The training intervention was carried out for eight weeks concurrent training (aerobic-resistance) with a three session’s frequency per week. For statistical analysis were used paired sample t-tests, analysis of covariance and Benferroni's post hoc test.

A significant increase in tidal volume (VT), vital capacity (VC), total lung capacity (TLC) and peak expiratory flow (PEF) was observed after exercise training (P<0.01), but the use of a medical mask and Cloth mask caused a significant decrease in VT, VC, TLC and PEF indices compared to the group activity without mask (P<0.01). Also, other results showed that there is no significant difference between cloth and medical masks in the pulmonary indices of healthy young men (P>0.05).

The results of this research show that the use of mas during exercise reduces lung function by increasing airway resistance.