Hey, I usually like to stay working out through pain or sickness, but I think I recently came down with the flu. I worked out the first day anyways was fine, the 2nd day I worked out and it was crappy, today is the 3rd day and I can’t breathe and I have to keep popping cough drops because my throat is so soar.
My question is, does working out and and staying active help you in recovery from a cold, flu or influenza or should you just stay on bed rest and being lazy until you feel better? Thanks!
no, working out doesnt help at all, if anything it makes it worse. weightlifting at least does, and there is no way you’ll do high weights (70-95% of 1RM)… you know how important having decent breathing is with compound movements with high weights and you cant have that.
now some small cardio to get the blood pumping cant be bad. just do some light cardio enough to warm up a bit
I have usually found working out to help me recover if I am feeling sick. Obviously, this depends on how severe your symptoms are. I just got over bronchitis myself and it got bad enough that I missed more days in a row out of the gym than I have in the past 8 years. No one can draw that line for you.
I’m in the same situation right now, and I have to tell you that you should decrease your training volume if you have the flu. I set a pullup PR this Thursday while I had the flu, but I felt nauseous around 1/3 through my workout so I had to stop soon after.
A flu workout should be very short and moderately intense, IMO. Keep your reps low so you don’t run out of breath that much.
It also helps to “overdose” on vitamin C, vitamin E and zinc.
In any case, training with the flu is a gamble. It can either make you stronger or send you to bed. Listen to your body. The choice is yours.
A sick athlete who can’t decide whether or not to train.
This was actually a system I stumbled upon by accident. An athlete emailed me saying that he woke up feeling pretty crummy, and wanted to know if I thought he should come in later that day. My response was as follows:
“On a scale of 0-10, how bad do you feel? If it’s a 10, you should be emailing me from the hospital. Consider this, and then scroll down to the bottom of this email…”
Blink 182 Nurse
I then hit the “return” key about 30 times, and typed the following:
“If it’s 0-3, you’re fine.
If it’s 4-5, go in, warm-up, and then see how you feel.
If it’s 6, just go in and do something, even if it’s just a warm-up.
If it’s 7, push things back a day.
If it’s 8-9, take a few days to rest.
If it’s 10, you shouldn’t feel good enough to check emails.”
Of course, it turns out that he had Ebola and died, so he was really an 11 or 12. It’s tough to check email when your eyes are bleeding.
Sometimes when I’ve been feeling really bad with a cold then a heavy session in the gym has cleared me right up. Other times I know I should have stayed home and rested.
[quote]Renton wrote:
As Prof X says, nobody can draw the line for you.
Sometimes when I’ve been feeling really bad with a cold then a heavy session in the gym has cleared me right up. Other times I know I should have stayed home and rested.
Experiment.[/quote]
It’s funny but I’ve had that happen too. You go work out, start off feeling like shit, and the next thing you know it’s fuckin gone. Weird.
Feel shitty at home or at the gym. You’re still feeling shitty. Personally I work threw everything, but I don’t really ever get sick, maybe once every five years. Just make sure you take some hand sanitizer with you, you don’t want to spread it around.