Exercise Safety Tips to Always Consider Prior to Starting Exercise

• Always wear comfortable, loose-fitting clothing and appropriate shoes for your activity.
• Warm up: Perform a low to moderate intensity warm-up for 5-10 minutes.
• Drink water before, during and after your exercise session.
• When exercising outdoors, evaluate your surroundings for safety: traffic, pavement, weather, and strangers.
• Wear clothes made of fabrics that absorb sweat and remove it from your skin.
• Never wear rubber or plastic suits. These could hold the sweat on your skin and make your body overheat.
• Wear sunscreen when you exercise outdoors.

Exercise Safety Tips for When to STOP Exercising

Stop exercising right away if you:

• Have pain or pressure in your chest, neck, shoulder, or arm.
• Feel dizzy or sick.
• Break out in a cold sweat.
• Have muscle cramps.
• Feel acute (not just achy) pain in your joints, feet, ankles, or legs.

Slow down if you are out of breath. You should be able to talk while exercising without gasping for breath.

Exercise Safety Tips to Recognize Days/Times When Exercise Should NOT be Initiated:

• Do not do hard exercise for 2 hours after a big meal.
• Do not exercise when you have a fever and/or viral infection accompanied by muscle aches.
• Do not exercise if your systolic blood pressure is greater than 200 and your diastolic is greater than 100.
• Do not exercise if your resting heart rate is greater than 120.
• Do not exercise if you have a joint that you are using to exercise (such as a knee or an ankle) that is red and warm and painful.
• Stop exercising if you experience severe pain or swelling in a joint. Discomfort that persists should always be evaluated.
• Do not exercise if you have a new symptoms that has not been evaluated by your health care provider such as pain in your chest, abdomen or a joint, swelling in an arm, leg or joint, difficulty catching your breath at rest, or a fluttering feeling in your chest.

Additional Safety Information is Provided at the National Institute of Health Web page www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/safety.html