Training While You Are Sick, By: Hugo Rivera
Happy New Year to Everyone!!! In an effort to wish you all good health for this year and those to come, I decided to dedicate this week's article to answering questions concerning training while you are sick.
As you may already know, NOTHING can bring progress more to a halt than colds (besides injuries, of course). I am often asked the question, should I train while I have this cold? The answer to that question really depends on what you mean by cold. Most people confuse the common cold with the flu. However, these are different types of illnesses. The flu is caused by viruses known as Influenza A or Influenza B while the common cold is caused by viruses called coronaviruses and rhinoviruses. There are over 200 different types of coronaviruses and rhinoviruses. Once one of them hits you, your immune system builds a lifelong immunity to it (therefore, the same virus will never hit you twice). However, you have the rest of the viruses that have not visited you yet to worry about.
The flu, as you may have already found out by experience, is much more severe as it is usually accompanied by an array of body aches and fever. Therefore, your body's immune system is taxed much more by the flu than by the common cold. At this time, training would not only be detrimental to muscle growth, but it would also be very detrimental to your health as well. Remember that while training helps us gain muscle, lose fat, feel good and energetic, it is still a catabolic activity. The body needs to be in good health in order to go from the catabolic state caused by the exercise to an anabolic state. So if you have the flu, your body is already fighting a catabolic state caused by the Influenza virus. In this case, weight training would only add more catabolism, which in turn would negatively affect the efficacy of the immune system against the virus causing the organism to get more sick. Therefore, absolutely no training if you have the flu. While your body is being affected by the virus, concentrate on very good nutrition and on drinking large amounts of fluids (water and electrolyte replacement drinks like Gatorade in order to prevent dehydration). Once the flu goes away completely, you can slowly start up your weight training program with light weights. DonÂ’t push yourself too hard during this first week. Next week, push yourself closer to muscular failure but still save those last few reps. By the third week you should be back on track.
If it is the common cold that is hitting you and the particular virus attacking you is mild (you know that is mild when your symptoms are just a runny nose and some coughing), you may get away with training as long as you stop the sets short of reaching failure and you decrease the weights by 25% (divide the weights that you usually use by 4 and that will give you the amount of weight to use) in order to prevent you from pushing too hard. Again, if the cold virus that is hitting you is making makes you feel run down, achy, with a sore throat and headaches, it would be best to stop training all together until the symptoms subside. If this is the case, just follow the exercise program startup recommendations described above for the after the flu is gone. Remember that we do not want to make it any harder for the immune system to fight the virus by introducing more catabolic activity.
If the sickness attacking you is other than the common cold or the flu, as always consult your doctor. Unfortunately, for most sicknesses out there that are neither the traditional cold nor the flu, you will need to stop training and follow the advice given for training after the flu is gone.
Now that we have seen how a flu or a cold can throw a wrench on progress, lets see how we can prevent these guys from affecting us during the flu season or during any other season for that matter.
While it is still unknown why cold and flu season generally comes during the winter months, it is known that you have to let the virus into your system in order for it to affect you. Therefore, it is only logical that we implement a two-fold prevention approach:
a)Prevent the virus from infiltrating your system. Keeping in mind that cold viruses spread by human contact, that they get into your system through the mouth, eyes and nose, and that they can remain active for up to three hours, you can accomplish this by doing the following:
*Keep your hands away from your face
*Wash your hands with anti bacterial soap frequently throughout the day (especially as soon as you finish your workout at the gym).
b)Maintain immune system operation at peak efficiency levels at all times. Remembering that exercise, a bad diet, and losing sleep are all catabolic activities, you can accomplish this by doing the following:
*Avoid overtraining by using the principles discussed in previous e-mails.
*Maintain a balanced diet (Not too many more carbs than protein) and avoid processed foods that contain high levels of saturated fats, refined flours or sugar as these types of foods lower the immune system function.
*Get a healthy dose of sleep a day (anywhere from to 9 hours depending on your individual requirements).
So remember, stay healthy by following the tips above, and if you get sick, then "don't beat a tired horse" as former Mr. Olympia Lee Haney used to say. Rest until you get better as if you don't you will end up more seriously ill and this will take you out of the gym for a longer period of time than if you would have rested.
