Movement Strategies Around Being Sick
Welcome back to BETTER, the email series that provides tools, strategies, and knowledge to help you progress toward a healthier and fitter future.
This week, we provide strategies for adjusting your habits around colds, flu, norovirus, and just being sick.
Today's installment covers how to approach movement around being sick.
What should I do if I feel a bug coming on? No one likes getting sick, and there are many different approaches to take from a movement perspective when you feel like you're getting sick. Should you sweat it out or shut it down? The answer: It depends on a lot of factors. Such as:
Type of Exercise: Regular exercise is an excellent way to strengthen our immune system and help our bodies fight off bugs. Exercise is also a form of stress, and in the acute setting (one session of exercise), the stress of exercise can temporarily reduce the effectiveness of our immune system because it is dealing with recovering from the activity we just undertook.
Intense, prolonged exercise (like heavy strength training, high-intensity interval training, endurance training, and team sports) is more stressful on the body and harder to recover from than low-intensity exercises such as walking, yoga, low-intensity swimming, biking, and jogging. If you feel like you are getting sick and you enjoy high-intensity exercise, it might be best to switch to low-intensity work for a few days to reduce the amount of stress your body has to deal with
Overall Daily Stress: The amount of physical or psychological stress we experience daily will affect our body's ability to ward off colds and flu. Large amounts of stress will negatively impact our immune system and increase the chance that exercising when you are sick will only worsen your symptoms. If we are in a season of high stress and feel a cold coming on, it might be a good idea to rest rather than exercise until you start to feel better.
Age: Our immune system gradually loses efficiency as we age, making it more challenging to eliminate those pesky viruses. Of course, exercising regularly, eating a high-quality diet with adequate calories and protein, sleeping enough, and working on our mindset will profoundly boost our immune system; it's worth understanding that a 25-year-old immune system will be different than someone in their 70s. Thus, it might behoove the more mature individual to take it easy when dealing with a cold or virus.
Sleep Quality: Sleep is magic from a recovery perspective. The better our sleep, the better we can fight off bugs. If your sleep is on point, you might be able to continue with your regular exercise routine while fighting off a virus. If life is making it difficult for you to attain enough quality sleep, it's a good idea to choose lower-intensity exercise strategies like walking, biking, or yoga.
Mindset: Our mindset has a powerful effect on our physical bodies. A positive attitude has been shown to reduce the length of the common cold and make completing activities of daily living easier when under the weather. If you get sick, look after your mindset and gently shift to the positive whenever possible.
Training Age: The longer and more consistently you have been exercising, the better your body is at handling the stress that comes along with it. If you have years of experience and your body is used to the stress it demands, you may be able to keep your normal routine.
Deciding whether or not to exercise when you are sick can depend on many factors. It is always good to err on the side of caution and either significantly reduce the intensity and duration of your regular exercise, switch to low-intensity exercise like walking for a few days, or take a few days off to give your body a chance to rest and recover.
If you are worried about losing all your gains by taking a few days off, you don't need to. You won't lose any muscle or cardiovascular endurance if you maintain at least a little activity (walking 4-6k steps). Sure, your mind feels a bit weaker or more winded when you return to your routine, but that doesn't mean you've lost fitness, and your normal strength and endurance will return within a week or two once your body is back to 100%