It’s sniffle season. The common cold is rife at the moment and if you live in a city, have to commute via train, or have kids going to school, it’s pretty much impossible to avoid it.
If you’re on a roll with your exercise or just starting to gain momentum, it’s really frustrating when you feel a cold coming on. Should you push through, or should you rest?
Whilst we’re not doctors, so cannot give medical advice, our experience of training hundreds of people through sickness and health has given us some useful insight.
To push through or to rest? Let’s get into it.
If you have Covid or a chest infection, the answer is unequivocal – rest. Transmission to others aside, if you have an infection, you need to rest or you could make yourself much worse for longer.
If you have a common cold, you might be tempted to go and train if you feel up to it. You might even feel like ‘sweating it out’. I’m not a doctor, but this theory has no scientific basis. You might feel temporarily better post-workout from the exercise high, but you won’t have found the cure to the common cold.
A friend of mine at university got the flu, drank lots of vodka and felt fine the next day. He swore for years that the vodka cured him. In reality, he would have felt better the next day whether he’d drunk it or not. If your cold or flu disappears the day after exercising, it’s more likely to be a correlation rather than the cause.
If you get a cold, my advice would be to rest. Let your immune system do its thing. Go for walks outside to get fresh air and move your body. Stretch at home. But wait until you’re feeling better before you get back to the gym and following your training program.
The average cold lasts 7-10 days, so I get that it’s frustrating to sit on the sidelines during that time. Especially if you get a cold several times over winter, that’s almost a month off training overall. The good news, though, is that with regular exercise and healthier living, you might be able to prevent the frequency and longevity of cold and flu this winter.
I’ve always found that I'm rarely ill when I’m at my fittest. Likewise, when I’ve been surrounded by super-fit people training for fights, it’s rare that any of them are ill, despite the proximity and sweat we shared daily. But that’s anecdotal, not data.
Studies show that regular exercise can reduce your chances of getting a cold by 20-30%, and a nutrient-dense diet sufficient in protein can make you less vulnerable to flu.
The British Journal of Sports Medicine studied 1,000 people and found that those who exercised regularly reduced their risk of illness by almost 50% or at least had minimal symptoms. Others have reported an increase in the production of white blood cells in regularly active people, which fight off infections in the body.
It makes sense; exercise and good nutrition make you physically robust inside and out, and your immune system is more resilient and capable of fighting illness. The fitter and healthier you are, the less likely you’ll be sitting on the sidelines from a cold.
There is so much evidence that being physically healthy through exercise and a good diet is preventative of many minor and major illnesses and conducive to good mental health. You don’t need to live like a monk; just get the basics right most of the time. Move lots, eat well, sleep well, and you’ll feel great.
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