Working Out After Being Sick

Working out while sick is generally a bad idea. If you go to a gym (and don’t workout at home) then you should definitely skip going to the gym when you’re sick. When working out at home, you’re also generally best to skip a workout. If you’ve got a simple cold, then working out is probably fine as long as you’re not putting other people at risk, but if you’ve got the flu, you’re probably not doing much working out.

When you’re sick to the degree that you can’t work out, then your body needs time to recover afterwards a bit as well. You’re not going to be able to come right back into your workouts where you left off. Sure, you could try to do so if you want, but it won’t matter as you simply won’t have the energy to be able to exert yourself at the same level as you were before. Take time to ramp back up to where you were.

Depending on how long you were unable to workout, your first day back may be as simple as doing a few minutes of stretching and some pacing or jogging in place. If you weren’t able to eat much while you were sick, your body won’t have the strength or energy it needs to do a lot more than that. However, it’s important to get this first day of “working out” so that your body realizes that you’re going to resume activities.

On your next day back, you can ramp things way up assuming you were able to eat pretty well the day before and you were able to sleep well also. While you’re not going to be at 100 percent on day two, you can probably be close to 80 percent. You may have to lower the weight/intensity a bit, and you may have to take a few extra breaks compared to what you’ve done in the past.

The important thing to remember as you ramp your workouts back up is to listen to your body. Remember, you have many days ahead of you when you can workout and get back to where you were. Don’t compromise your health on the first couple of days back in order to try to get back to where you were. Help your body to comfortably resume the activity level that you were at before over a few days.

Within a week, you should be able to comfortably feel like you are back at full strength in your workouts (assuming you were out of working out for a couple of days). If you were sick for a longer period of time, then you should expect that it will take you longer to get back to where you were. It’s not the end of the world - don’t get discouraged. Your body has gone through a traumatic experience that it needs time to recover from.

It can definitely be frustrating to lose progress because of something that you couldn’t control. But it’s critical to remember just that - you don’t control it. Work on the things you can control. If you continue to have health problems, work with your doctor to figure out what options you have. By focusing your effort on what you can control rather than what you can’t, you’re far more likely to succeed in the long run.

After being sick, take your time to return to your full workout routine. You’ll get there eventually, but don’t put your short term health at risk.