Excercising with a cold...

[Unanimous]

Awrite chaps,

Wondering if any of you insightful training guru's can let me know if there's any point of me excercising while I've got a cold. I mean I don't feel run down or anything but I've gone through a whole bog roll on my snot today and have only missed my excercises one day in the last month. I really enjoy doing my routine and don't want to miss a night.

I do all my excercises at home. Usually consisting of 20 mins on weights, press-ups and crunches. Then 20 mins on the bag and finally 20 mins back on the weights, press-ups and crunches.

Will the excercises have any effect while I have a cold or will it be detrimental?

I know it seems like a ****** question but I don't know the answer so thought I'd ask.

[JF91]

Nope, wait until your body is back to condition, training with a cold can only have negative effect on your training and your body. You might aswell sleep through the frustration of not training and get your body back to 100%. If you train atall make sure it's really light aerobic work.

[kenny91]

vapor rub under ur nose should do trick and to get rid of the groggy feelin that subsequently makes u feel a bit lazy when u have a cold - energy drink or protein shake

if not ..
**** it

[kenny91]

well ... works for me anyways and ur best bet is a flavoured energy shake like strawberry or vanilla rather than a nasty tangy energy drink

[Unanimous]

Thanks for the replies guys but it came too late. I spent 30 mins on the bag last night with 10 of those minutes spent as what I term as "hell for leather". I know this is going to sound weird but once I had finished, had a bath and then chilled watching some old fights on the box I actually felt better! I thought I would probably pay for it when I woke this morning but I don't feel too bad at all.

[Ell]

I asked this question a while back but didn't really get a difinitive answer so I did a bit of research on what can be the consequences of training with a cold.

Because your body is colder with a cold (hence the name) your heart works harder to heat your body, heating your body up by a further 0.5-1°C putting your body temperature at around 37.5°C. I know this doesn't sound like much but it makes a big difference over a prolonged amount of time. If you exercise you're putting your heart under a lot of stress compared to its usual workload especially if you're pushing your body to the max, if too much exercise is done or the exercise is too strenuos for the heart serious damage can be done to the ventricles and other parts of the heart.

This is only a simple overview of the anatomical effects of training with a cold as it's only off the top of my head. I wouldn't worry about causing serious damage to you heart unless you're doing a LOT of exercise, I would suggest maybe doing less cardio endurance exercises. Only resume to full training when you're sure you've full recoved from the cold. Drink plenty of fluids and take in plenty of calories. As the old saying goes, "feed a cold, to starve a fever."

[Unanimous]

Cheers for that Ell. Looks like I'll be hitting the bag with half power for the time being then.