Training while sick

Hi all,

just a pretty straightforward question; are you supposed to stop training when you get sick, or is there any kind of reduction of reps or something you're supposed to do?

I only have a cold, but I don't want to do more damage than good to my body by over-exerting myself.

-Eleanor

It is probably better to rest, drink chicken soup, and rest some more

But if you HAVE TO train, go light as you suggested yourself.

Training while you're sick will make you more sick, and for longer.  However, it depends what you think is more important.  If getting that training session in is more important than not being sick, go right ahead.  It's not a smart move, and I wouldn't recommend it, but you can do it if you want to...

As a general rule, it's best to rest and let your body fight off whatever has infected you.

I agree with Bipocni. I was just recently sick, and though its never smart to train when sick, I did anyway. I reduced the reps and sets, but I did the training sessions because it was very important for me to help solidify my habit loop for doing F1. I know I have a hard time the first few months, or even a year or two sometimes making something a genuine habit, so its very important for me at least the first 2-3 months to not stray from it if possible.

So whilst I was sick for 1 or 2 more days than I may have been otherwise, it was much more beneficial to me in the long run to keep doing the workouts, albeit at a reduced rate. And the important thing here is that if my condition were to worsen further and I got sicker even in the slightest, then I would have backed off training completely, at least for a few days. But it did not, and it just went away more slowly than it would normally.

Someone somewhere mentioned that it's alright to train with a cold that sits in the throat and upwards, whereas it's a bad idea if the cold sits from the neck down. Following this rule has worked fine for me, but then again I'm hardly ever really sick.

A long time ago I'd read a couple of peer reviewed papers, where an experiment was made, to see if exercise would increase the sickness period and as far as I remember, exercise didn't make any difference. Google is your friend

Ravn said:

A long time ago I'd read a couple of peer reviewed papers, where an experiment was made, to see if exercise would increase the sickness period and as far as I remember, exercise didn't make any difference. Google is your friend

Unfortunately a lot of junk is 'peer reviewed' these days. If you want to know whether the conclusions of a paper are worth listening to, you have to look at their methodology and results. 

REST!!

I'd say rest. Rest means optimize recovery. To me it looks pointless to add stressors whenever your body is not ready to deal with them.

Joshua Slocum said:

Unfortunately a lot of junk is 'peer reviewed' these days. If you want to know whether the conclusions of a paper are worth listening to, you have to look at their methodology and results.

Unfortunately too true.

I rest, you're body is already using it's resources to heal itself, if you go and destroy it, it'll just put more load and it'll have to use it's limited resources to both fight off the cold, and repair your body. So you'll just heal slower in both areas in the end. That's how I see things anyway...

Haha, thanks heaps guys, that seems unanimous enough for me.

Eleanor Rigg said:

Haha, thanks heaps guys, that seems unanimous enough for me.

Now it's officially not unanimous

Although I believe that overtraining is a huge risk factor for getting colds and impairing their resolution, I actually make a point of working out moderately when I have a simple cold. I drop the intensity to about 50% of what I would usually do, make sure I get a good night's sleep, and typically recover in a day or two.

For your reading pleasure, here's a summary of what Ravn was talking about: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/health/nutrition/25best.html?_r=0 along with the abstract of the original study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9813869

Here's a recent review on the topic that is open access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9813869

I've found if I'm getting over the tail end of a cold, a good workout can help clear things out and speed up recovery.  But this is only when I"m almost back to 100% anyway.