Sports When Sick, Can You Do It?

Medical Video: Should You Workout When Sick?

Exercising when sick may sound strange. Many people say that people who are sick should not exercise. However, what if it turns out that exercising when sick can improve the immune system and help repel diseases in the body? It really depends on the type of illness suffered and the type of exercise performed. Here's the full explanation.

When can you do exercise when you are sick?

If symptoms are above your neck, you are usually allowed to exercise even with lower intensity than usual. Including symptoms such as:

Memory
Nasal congestion
Sneezing
Sore throat
Headache

If you have enough energy to ignore the symptoms, increase your body temperature by sweating because exercise can help the body to kill many viruses. In fact, according to research, exercising when fever is actually recommended. At the end of a 10-day trial, people who exercised 40 minutes every day using 70% of their maximum heart rate felt better, compared to people who did not exercise, even though the clinical severity and duration of their symptoms were almost identical.

The key to exercising when sick is to do it carefully. Exercising excessively will cause stress on your body, which can suppress the immune system. Do enough exercise if you feel unwell. Exercise and Sport Science Reviews, said that prolonged intense exercise causes immunosuppression, while moderate intensity exercise can improve immune function and reduce the risk and respiratory infections due to viruses.

When should you not exercise when you are sick?

Your doctor will generally advise you to avoid exercise if you have symptoms at the bottom of your neck, such as:

Fever
Cough or tightness in the chest
Fatigue
Muscle ache
Vomiting, abdominal pain and / or abdominal cramps

No matter what your symptoms, you must be very careful and always pay attention to your body. If you do not feel these symptoms, but you just want to rest, then that is what your body needs. If you force your body to do something unwanted, then your illness will get worse.

How does exercise affect the immune system?

Exercise may play a role in the innate immune response and adaptive immune. Here's how:

One prolonged exercise session will cause the body to be susceptible to infection. For example, running a marathon can suppress the immune system for up to 72 hours, and this is why many athletes get sick after racing.
However, one heavy training session will not cause the same effect of immune pressure. Only one training session that really can boost immunity in healthy people.
Interestingly, sustained resistance training can stimulate innate immunity (but not with adaptive immunity). Meanwhile, sustained light exercise can strengthen the adaptive immune system.

In the end, moderate exercise and endurance training can strengthen the immune system over time. So, you can train hard when you are healthy, even though a heavy training session can interfere with immune function. So, when you are sick, you can do light exercise.

The link between exercise, stress, and immune function

A group of scientists collected data on exercise habits and influenza disease, they found that:

People who never exercise will get sick quite often.
People who exercise between once a month and three times a week are the best.
People who exercise weigh more than four times a week get sick most often.

So, in simple terms, people who are too lazy and exercise too often experience decreased immunity. However, moderate exercise can enhance immunity.

Link between severe exercise and infection

Sudden increase in volume and intensity of exercise can create stress, and allow viruses or bacteria to enter the body and cause disease. At the Los Angeles Marathon in 1987, one in seven athletes fell ill one week after the race. And they run more than 68 km per week before the race, and they have twice the chance of getting the disease compared to those who practice less than 25 km per week.