Last week I talked about finding the difference between soreness and real injury. This week’s topic requires you to find some of the same balance.
“Should I work out when sick?” This is a question most — if not all — of us will have to face at some point.
Most of the time, if your illness is minor in nature, you can push through it. In fact, it may even make you feel better to workout if you have some head congestion or a cold. But if you’ve got something more debilitating, like a bad stomach bug or a respiratory situation, working out can really set you back and make matters worse.
The quick rule of thumb is that if the illness is above your neck, go ahead and workout. If it’s below your neck (lungs, g.i.), you need to put the breaks on the exercise. Get your rest. Your body needs to recover. And when you get well, pick up where you left off and Bring It! But of course continue to eat right even while you are sick so that you don’t take a step backwards.”
Before P90X, I used to get sick all the time. I work in the mouths of kids all day long, and having a cold every week or two was a way of life. I also live in Tulsa Oklahoma, the allergy capital of the world. I used to pop Zyrtek, Claritin, and Allegra like they were Tic Tacs. However, in the well over 3 years that I’ve been bringing it, I’ve only been sick ONCE! And I never take any allergy meds anymore, even when I’m mowing the grass (which used to make my eyes swell up and leave me wheezing for several hours). Quite a notable feat for a guy like me who my wife used to get so mad at because I was always under the weather.
I credit my indestructible immune system to the perfect combination of Shakeology, exercise, and impeccable nutrition. But we all know that even the most fit people in the world get sick sometimes. And sure enough it finally caught up to me! It was the week between Christmas and New Years Eve, the flu virus swept through our house. All 6 kids went down first (that was NOT fun!). Then a couple days later, I started to feel sick. But I was in full-fledged denial. I hadn’t been sick in a year. No way was I catching the flu!
For a split-second, I remembered my own advice — this was G.I. and anything below the neck should get rest to make sure I didn’t make things worse — but then I thought, “No! I can’t skip a workout! I must lift!” So I did my workout, felt miserable, and crashed the rest of the day. Surely I learned my lesson though, right? Well, not exactly! I figured I could push through it, and I worked out again the next day. I felt like I was having an asthma attack the whole time, really felt horrible, and couldn’t eat the rest of the day! Finally I took a hint and decided to take the next day off. I didn’t get much better the next day — just spent most of it sleeping and going back and forth between chills and sweating. And all the while I was planning how I could make up the missed workout by doubling up the following day. The next day I went for it. I tried working out again. Another mistake! I continued to get worse, continued to drop precious weight that I had been gaining during the mass building round, and feeling just plain awful!
I finally said that I would take my own advice and stop working out until I recovered, which turned out to be 2 more days. I finally woke up feeling good on Jan 1st, hit it hard on a great session of Chest/Shoulders/Tris, and was back to my usual self. I kicked myself for staying sick a whole week, when I probably could have cut it down to just 2-3 days if I had rested like I was supposed to.
Luckily, in my entire Beachbody experience from Feb 2010 until now in October 2013, that one week of the flu is the only episode of illness is really the only thing I’ve dealt with. The colds, the allergies, the upset stomachs …. they are all ancient history. I am a big believer (and walking example) of how a lot of that stuff is the direct results of not taking good care of ourselves. I keep my body running well, and it fights off all that junk. Hopefully my trend will continue, but just knowing that we are all going to get hit with illness from time to time, when it does catch up to me again, you better believe I’ll be resting and recovering, not trying to push through it and making myself worse! Lesson learned!
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My email: coachwayne@teamripped.com
IG: @wayne_wyatt
