Blood Donation?

Does anyone know if giving blood can mess up your training/recovery stuff? As far as I know the only warning is that you might get light headed if you dont give yourself enough rest between training and giving blood…any comments or knowledge on the subject is welcome…

I’ve always been told “no heavy lifting” after I donate any kind of bodily fluid.

I just plan the donations on my off days, and never have experianced any negative side effects training-wise thus far.

I’m curious about this myself. About twice a month the blood mobile is parked outside my gym looking for donations. I decline because I’m not an expert, but I can’t see it being a good idea to give blood either directly before or directly after intense weightlifting. Anyone have an expert opinion on this?

I’ve donated and then unloaded 2 tons of soil in 30`C.

I think it has alot to do with size. Bigger cats have more volume, as do people with greater muscularity. Where as I might be donating 10%, someone smaller might be donating 20% and would be more apt to suffer negative effects.

Try donating and then lifting light, nothing you can drop on yourself and see how it feels.

Either way, keep donating.

I agree that the size of the individual has much to do with it. They take the same amount of blood from a 250 lb person as they do from a 110 lb person(that’s the minimum weight to donate where I live). My wife takes a couple of days to recover fully.

I donate every eight weeks and don’t have a problem with exercise or recovery as long as I wait a day before any heavy weight training. I can do light cardio the same day as giving blood but that’s about it. Once got called out to an industrial fire the same day that I gave blood and it was pretty rough (climbing stairs, wet bunker gear, breathing air, charged hose lines, etc.) but if I can wait 24 ? 30 hours it doesn’t seem to effect my next workout at all. If you are a college student or on a tight budget you can get a relatively cheap buzz after donating. At least that’s what I’ve been told.