Should You Exercise When You’re Sick?
Brrrrrrrr…
It’s that time of the year and you’re now faced with the hardest decision of your life.
Should you propose or accept?1Let alone follow through and actually walk down the aisle. What to name your child?2I take it that you’ve already named the first and second after me, with my first name given to one and my middle to the other. Even still, I don’t know what the difficulty is because there’s still my nickname, Monster! Should you give up your lucrative career to pursue your dream of rap stardom?3Go for it!
No!
You’re under the weather and the gym is calling your name.
Should you exercise when you’re sick?
To work out or not, that is the question.
Take the following quiz to find out!
1. DOES THE THERMOMETER YOU JUST SHOVED UP YOUR ASS HAVE A CRAZY HIGH READING (ABOVE 39°C/103°F)?
a) Yes
b) No
2. IS YOUR CHEST SO CONGESTED THAT YOUR BREATHING IS SHALLOWER THAN WHAT YOU BASE YOUR FRIENDSHIPS AND RELATIONSHIPS ON?
a) Yes
b) No
3. DO YOU HAVE A HACKING COUGH THAT’S MORE PERSISTENT THAN YOU ARE?
a) Yes
b) No
4. ARE YOU EXPERIENCING STOMACH PAINS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU STARVING BECAUSE YOU’RE TOO BROKE TO AFFORD FOOD?
a) Yes
b) No
5. DOES YOUR BODY ACHE ALL OVER LIKE THE BODIES OF CARTOON CHARACTERS DO WHEN HIT BY ACME TRUCKS, WITH THEM SUFFERING THE PAIN IN SILENCE FOR OUR AMUSEMENT?
a) Yes
b) No
6. IS STUFF COMING OUT OF YOU NOT ONLY THROUGH YOUR MOUTH BUT FROM OUT THE OTHER END TOO AS VIOLENTLY AS THE EXORCIST PROJECTILE VOMIT SCENE?
a) Yes
b) No
SCORE:
Conventional thinking says that you should take time off from the gym when you’re sick. The problem is that conventional thinking also says you should remain active and sweat out whatever your sickness is. So which is it?
Well, the answer is both!
If you didn’t answer yes to any of the questions, then all you’re doing is sneezing or have the sniffles, a stuffy nose, sore throat, or mild headache. In that case, your symptoms are above the neck. As long as you don’t have asthma, heart disease, or any other underlying health problem, then you should carry on with your usual routine and work out. Working out when mildly sick will not hinder recovery time or make things worse. In fact, exercising in this condition can open up airways and release endorphins, both having the effect of helping you feel better. Just make sure to keep the exercise intensity at a low to moderate level and/or reduce the amount of time you’re working out for.4Oh, and be extra mindful to clean up after yourself at the gym so you don’t spread your germs, you sick, sick fuck! Hell, it was probably from some dope like you who you got sick from. Yeah, some dope who chose to soldier through a workout when sick but didn’t wipe down the equipment from their pestilence ridden sweat and mucus. Don’t be that guy (or gal)!
If, however, you answered in the affirmative to any of the above, then you’re experiencing below the neck symptoms. The coughing, fatigue, or body aches, chills, chest congestion, or bronchial tightness are signs that your body is trying to fight off a flu virus, not a puny cold one. That being the case, you’re better off resting and conserving energy to let your body build an immune response rather than introducing it to more stress that it has to recover from in addition to whatever’s fucking you up. So yeah, don’t go to the gym and possibly make things worse.5The same advice NOT to work out applies if you’re experiencing dizziness, weakness, or nausea. Just be sure not to use feeling shitty as an excuse to eat shitty as you wonder if the gym misses you as much as you miss the gym.6Because the gym is an inanimate object that lacks a brain and the ability to think complex thoughts, the gym does NOT miss you! Instead, increase your protein to help stave off muscle breakdown, bump up dietary fat to provide the raw materials necessary for the formation of new immune cell membranes, and drink plenty of water to replace fluid loss from all that sweating and nose blowing.
Exercise has many benefits, one of which is the boosting of the immune function. Some of the ways exercise contributes to immunity is in the temporary increase of bacteria-fighting macrophages and the promotion of good circulation, as white blood cells and antibodies move through the body more quickly with the rise in heart rate and blood flow.
And that’s just with moderate exercise!
Considering how moderate exercise makes you healthy, why not exercise even harder?!…and for longer?!…and more often?!
That way, you’ll become impervious to illness and N-E-V-E-R get sick!!!
And if you N-E-V-E-R get sick, then you’ll N-E-V-E-R have to make the complex decision if you should work out or not!!!
Talk about a win-win!
Actually, it’s more like a lose-lose.
Why is because intense marathon workouts elevate stress hormones that lower immunity for anywhere from 3 to 72 hours after an exercise bout, allowing enough time for bacterial and viral infections to do their bacterial and viral infectioning.
While there are some people who get flu-like symptoms after training hard, not everyone gets exercise-induced illness.
This may be you, giving you license to think that you can constantly beat your body into the ground with intense marathon workouts and little to no rest between training days.
It doesn’t.
What you’ll still be doing is compromising the immune function. You’ll just be delaying the consequences until the central nervous system is thoroughly taxed. When that happens, you’ll not only be more susceptible to fatigue and injury but also frequent infection, as the body’s ability to recover is hampered from the repeated stress that it’s never given a chance to recover from.
So yeah, just keep your workouts short, to a moderate intensity, and take an ample amount of rest days!
Are you telling me not to…?!?!
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you to do.
Yup, don’t be an overachiever!!!
Rest is an important part of the training equation, even when you’re healthy. It’s even more important when you’re sick, no matter how serious the illness.
When suffering a mild cold, you can work out but you need to provide your body rest by not going as hard as you normally would at full strength. A light workout can temporarily alleviate symptoms. It can also allow your body to have enough resources to combat whatever’s responsible for you coughing and sneezing everywhere.
When suffering something more severe, you need to provide your body rest by shutting everything down. By doing so, resources that may be the difference between life and death aren’t diverted to vain shit like the muscle tissue repair necessary to add a few measly centimeters to your bulging twigs for arms.
Trust me, nothing is going to happen to you if you quarantine yourself.
It’ll take longer than a few days with you under the covers for you to lose your gains.
Those oh so precious gains!7Excuse me, I meant GAINZ!!!
Sure, you may lose some strength, but it’s not like you’re that strong anyway.
All snarkiness aside, you’ll get that superhuman power back within a few workouts.8Actually, I lied. That was said with all snark!
But whatever.
Anyway, when it comes to whether you should work out or not when you’re sick, the answer is definitely yes…
…and no!
Glossary: arms, dietary fat, exercise, gym, intensity, rest day, work out, workout