You can be sick and keep your gains.  Oh, happy day.

Times have changed and gone are the days of training hard when you’re sick.

Let me cut right to the chase with this one. Your body needs rest to fight off and recover from a sickness.

For today’s sake let’s assume you have a common cold – stuffy nose, headache, sore throat, congestion from your lungs to your sinuses, lower energy levels and so on.

The good news? You’re not actually dying and you CAN certainly still workout. Can I get an amen?

Your workouts SHOULD change when you’re sick. You are not 100% therefore your body is not 100% and should not be treated as such. Could you probably push through and perform well? Hell yes, I did it for years. And my sickness stuck around for at least three times as long as if I would have backed off and swallowed my pride #lessonlearned.

The goal here is to keep the gains while being sick, and get better ASAP – really the best of both worlds.

Believe it or not, your body’s resting metabolic rate (RMR) is actually faster than normal when you’re sick because your immune system is working on overtime to get your cold to surrender.

This is also why you should eat as normally and nutritiously as possible when sick. Click for more info on eating when you have the flu.

So, there are three things to consider when choosing how to work out when sick:

1. How much sleep are you going to get that day and night?

If you can get 8-10+ hours of sleep the following night or take a hefty nap that day and days to follow, working out is YES.  If you are going to get less than 8, do some light cardio and make time for a nap.  Your body already needs more sleep than normal and it will likely be lower quality than normal due to being sick. Get your sleep and workout or go on a walk and don’t get sleep.

2. Where are your symptoms residing? Chest? Head? Body aches?

Keep this simple. If your sickness is hanging out in your lunges and five 400’s are on your workout for the day…it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine that it would be a very poor decision to choose cardio as exercise when you have a chest cold… I hope you’re with me on that one.

If your body aches but your lungs feel great, that might be the time to do a light circuit plus some cardio.  Listen to your body, be open to switching up the workout if something is not going well.

3. What is your current stress level?

1. High – you have road rage, you’re irritable, and worried about an unknown situation or you don’t have control over something in your life?
2. Medium – high workload or drama at work? Had a little tiff with the significant other that has your mind racing a bit?
3. Low – you might as well be on a beach with a drink in your hand because life goooood.

You can alter your workouts depending on the answers above. This is up to your discretion + it takes a little trial and error. You are quite literally learning your body when working out while sick.

Big Picture: Create a Deload Week.

Work at 50-75% of what your normal workout looks like.

If you wear a heartrate monitor like Polar, my personal favorite, pay attention to your heartrate. You can do this easily by keeping the heart rate lower than it normally would be during workouts. For example, my high heartrate is typically in the 180’s during a workout. When I’m sick I keep my heart rate under 170bpm and the average is typically 140-150bpm or lower.  You’re just moving to move and get the blood flowing when sick.

Application

EITHER

1. Remove the main lift (squat, deadlift, bench, overhead press, any Olympic lifts) and do a more bodybuilding type workout.

OR

2. Go through the motions of the main lift with 50-60% the weight you would normally do.

With either of these options you are essentially creating a deload week where you do 50-75% of the volume and/or intensity as your normal week demands.

Replace big compound movements (multi-joint movements) that elicit a large muscular and cardiorespiratory stress on the body with single joint exercises.

The above suggestion is based on doing more of a bodybuilding based workout.

Rather than doing “full body EXERCISES” do a “full body WORKOUT”.

If you prefer to keep the big compound movements in, that is a fine route as well. Just take off the heavy load OR do less reps. Make sure you are lowering the volume or intensity SOMEHOW.

With keeping the big lift, I suggest altering your accessory work in any of the following ways:

1. Do less total rounds
2. Less time in a circuit
3. Use less weight than normal
4. Take more rest than prescribed
5. Do less reps of each exercise

Keep listening to your body throughout your time being sick.  Is it getting worse after workouts?  Is your heartrate way higher than it should be for the work you are performing?  Pay attention to your body’s response to the training and adjust accordingly.

Make sure you can get rest and that the training is not taking a toll on your body’s ability to recover and beat the sickness.

Do you have any terrible or successful experiences with working out while sick?  I’d love to hear from you! Drop me a comment below!