Should You Workout When You Are Sick?

Zeke Samples
Jul 20, 2017 · 3 min read

It is true that the body feels great after exercise — a good “sweat session” is traced to boosting the immune system. Ever wonder what you should do when your immune system is on overdrive because of a cold or flu? Consider taking a break from the workout schedule or contemplating pushing through it?

If you have spent any time at a gym, you’ve seen that one person struggling to get through her workout. She’s sneezing, blowing her nose, and looking absolutely miserable while trying to get in a training session…in spite of a nasty cold. She may even be hoping the workout will help her get over it sooner, and you may be hoping she WIPES DOWN HER EQUIPMENT! (I would, or I would pick a different exercise)..

As it turns out, the old “sweat out the cold” technique isn’t recommended. There is no evidence that exercising can help get rid of a cold. There is evidence that light exercise does increase your serotonin levels, making you feel better temporarily. All in all, exercise won’t magically cure the common cold, or any other infection for that matter.

Is it Ever Safe to Exercise When Sick?

I don’t like it when my training routines are interrupted; I feel I am off track and it also affects my food intake. When you’re in the middle of achieving a personal goal, and then illness strikes, how can you know when it’s safe to carry on and when you need to stay in bed?

Should you exercise while sick?

A good rule of thumb for making this decision is to look at the symptoms:

Safe to work out: The symptoms are mostly above the neck, or in other words, you have an upper respiratory infection, like the common cold. Stick with low to moderate training sessions for these kinds of symptoms.

Not safe to work out: There are significant symptoms below the neck, like body aches, lung pain when breathing, or coughing. These are signs of more serious illness, like the flu and mean you need to take a break.

Definitely not safe to work out: It’s important to take extra care if you have a chronic condition that affects breathing, like asthma. A condition like this combined with an infection can make working out really dangerous.

Hopefully this helped shed some light on a question that I hear often. If you are sick, take some time to recover adn get well! If you aren’t sick, have a great workout and stay focused.

Please LIKE or SHARE this with your friends, if you found it useful for you and it helped you. I am starting my YouTube channel, so please follow me there and stay tuned for helpful videos on variuos topics of exercise and nutrition.

Thank You!

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Zeke Samples
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