The Humidity & Numb hands (fingers)

  • Does anyone else with or without breathing issues (asthma) or whatever find it harder to do your workout when it's humid? Even indoors I am having a time of it and having to use my inhaler where I haven't had to in a while.

    It seems like I am struggling to do my treadmill workouts in half the time I normally do. Also, my fingers and hands swell up really bad and go kind of numb. Does this happen to anyone else?
  • Not the swelling so much, but I know what you mean about the asthma. I had to use my inhaler recently for the first time in years. I haven't yet quite figured out a way to avoid having trouble with it. It seems to go away if I exercise hard for about half an hour (wheezing included) and then slow down to a walk for a few minutes, but that's a pretty unpleasant half an hour. Ah, well, I guess we just have to suffer through. Humidity can't last forever!
  • Oh yeah. I just wilt when it's hot and humid. It saps all the energy from me.

    As for hands swelling up, fingers going numb, etc, this only happens to me when I am walking/hiking for long distances and keep my hands down by my side. I do swing them back and forth so they aren't hanging like limp noodles or anything, but having them always down like that seems to pull all the blood to my hands and causes them to swell up.

    When I feel my hands start to go puffy or numb, I raise them up to waist level in a jogging position and start clenching/unclenching them to get the blood flowing right again.

    I don't know if that's what is happening to you, though.
  • The humidity bothers me a LOT and I don't have asthma... I just stop running in the summer and take it back up again in the fall and winter, I prefer to run in -20c than in 25c humidity. In the summer I bike, I don't feel the humidity so much on my bike.

    My hands swell up to when I exercise, usuall when I am walking with my arms down too.... It's annoying but goes away as soon as I get home and drink a lot of water.