Exercise VS The Common Cold

I woke up this morning feeling off. Just a little scratchy throat, a slight cough. You know, the stuff you kind of blow off thinking it's just a bad morning.

This is the bugger that's killing me. Looks kinda like the ocean with starfish...[Image]

Fastforward about 12 hours, and here I am, cocooned in my bathrobe with a mug of tea, pretty convinced I'm going to die. Just kidding about the death part. But it got me thinking about something my college trainer always said: "Exercising when you're sick will help you feel better faster, unless you have a fever."

Part of me thinks they just told us this as an excuse to keep pushing us, so I think it's time to do a little Internet research.

"Above the Head" Rule

According to the Mayo Clinic, it's all about the "above the head" rule. If all your symptoms are centralized from the neck up (i.e. sinus infection type stuff), then its ok to do moderate exercise. If you have widespread muscle aches, joint pain, stomach aches, or other symptoms below the neck, then don't exercise. The ultimate no-no is exercising on a fever.

Easy rule to follow. Funny how my trainers never specified.

How Illness Effects Your Fitness

While you're sick, your body switches how it works. Instead of building up muscle, it breaks it down, a process called catabolism. Unfortunately for us folks trying to get in shape, this means we are going to lose some of that hard earned muscle and there really isn't much we can do about it except ride it out.

In addition, our bodies stop metabolizing fat, so we aren't even doing anything on that account either. Recovery time increases, as our bodies cannot rebuild and repair our muscles, and it can take up to 2 weeks to regain muscle strength lost to a 3 day flu.

You can check out more specific information here. Just don't get all hypochondriac, because this article discusses some very serious but relatively rare symptoms.

With all that said, according to CNN.com, moderate exercise while you have the cold can halve your number of sick days. For me, I'm just gonna see how I feel tomorrow morning. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will wake up just peachy.