PODCAST - how to start working out again after being sick
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[00:00:00] Welcome to The Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host, Johnny Havey, an ultra runner, endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone 100K ultra, I proved them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned, from breathing techniques to mindset shifts, to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals despite limitations, let's get started.
Being sick is the worst, especially when you have training goals, and maybe you have some sort of other really important training routine for you and your health that you're extremely dedicated to, and you just got sick and it's throwing it off. Well, no matter [00:01:00] your situation, I wanna help you. With that being said, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a healthcare professional, which is why I have a disclaimer in the show notes and in the YouTube description.
You always wanna make sure you consult with and talk to a healthcare professional when integrating anything into your health and wellness life. With that being said, I have had asthma since birth. I first found out about it when I was four years old. I was struggling for years with my asthma, and the doctor told me at four that that's what I had.
And you know what? I was pretty upset, and spent a lot of years building and developing my lungs to a point where I didn't have to rely on my inhaler, unless I'm sick. To this day, it is almost impossible for me to be sick without using my inhaler at least once. This past time, which you can still hear a little bit of it in my throat and my lungs, I think I used my inhaler three or four times, which is unheard of for me.
I never use my [00:02:00] inhaler. But I'm sick, gotta do it. Gotta do what you gotta do. Gotta take care of yourself first and foremost. Now, I have another episode linked in the YouTube description and show notes all about how I believe that if you can, continuing to work out while you're sick can actually be beneficial.
Now, you gotta be careful with it. You don't wanna overdo it, but I do believe that working out, at least having some sort of movement, even though you wanna dial it back at least 25%, but probably even more to 50%-plus, there are health benefits of working out while sick, as long as you don't push it and you don't put so much pressure on yourself that it messes up your immune system, makes it worse.
So I have seven tips for you today when it comes to getting back into any training program, any sort of training goals, whatever you have, working out, exercise, movement. Whatever it is, I have seven tips for you to do that. I hope these powerfully serve you. They have powerfully [00:03:00] served me, my friends and family, and our lives, and I want the same thing for you.
Well, first thing is really what I shared. Now, when you check out that other episode, you'll see that I'm pretty bullish on working out while you're sick. You don't have to do it, and I highly recommend you talk to your doctor about doing it before you do that. But if you do decide to continue working out while you're sick, you gotta take the intensity down.
Now, for me, I typically take the intensity down 25% to 50%. So what I would usually do, I cut it at least by 25%, all the way up to 50%. If I'm feeling real bad, then this goes to 0% pretty quick for at least a day or two, and then I ramp it back up. But this is really the number one thing. If you decide you're gonna keep working out while sick, you need to dial it back.
And really, when you start working out again after being sick, you need to dial it back by at least 25 to 50%. And that's really the [00:04:00] thing. The first workout after being sick sucks. It is the worst. It is so bad. But the great thing is, it does get better. You just gotta rip the Band-Aid off. Now, depending on how you feel, how your fitness is, how you're feeling in general, you gotta be strategic of when you do this.
Now, if you decided to work out 50% capacity while you're sick, and then you go and do this, it probably isn't gonna be as bad. But I'll tell you what, this last cold that I had, I worked out during it. I cut back significantly, to only running a couple miles a day. Instead of running three to five miles a day plus doing a gym workout, I cut it down to just running two to three miles a day.
Well, when I got back to the gym, I felt terrible for that first workout. So you just gotta be aware of that. The first one's gonna be hard. And since we're friends now, I gotta level with you. The second one won't feel much better, and that's tip number three. You gotta get these first two under your belt, though, to get [00:05:00] back into your workout routine.
The first one sucks, and the second one won't feel that much better, and it's really because you're still thinking about how bad the first one was, and you probably don't even wanna do the second one. But you got to to get the habit rebuilt. Now, we can do these both at a lesser intensity level, and I highly recommend you do do that.
But we gotta get these first couple done. You may be different than me, though. Now, some people I hear, they go right back into it and they feel pretty good. Might also be because they're resting longer than I do. I try and get back into it while I'm still a little bit sick, and that's what we gotta be careful with, and that's why I wanna keep the intensity down and just be prepared for how those first couple workouts are gonna feel.
With that being said, give it a week and you should start feeling better again. If you're not, then you're probably too high in that intensity. So you gotta be really careful. These first two workouts you do after being sick are gonna be a good barometer. If, especially after that second workout, if [00:06:00] you feel worse...
I'm not talking about during the workout. The workout's gonna feel hard. It's gonna suck. And the second one's not gonna feel much better. But if you feel worse after the workout, that is a clue that you went out too hard, that you may wanna take another day or two off, that when you go back and work out, you wanna cut the intensity down even more.
Maybe my 25 to 50% rule is too much for you. Maybe you need to be at- 25% of what you're usually at for that first workout, first couple workouts. But really, you should start actually feeling better with your workouts themselves after about a week of getting back into it. In order to do that, though, we need to make sure that we're getting extra hydration, electrolytes, and nutrition.
We gotta support our bodies even more, 'cause our bodies just fought something off. Our immune systems are already down. Our body needs help, and that's where we can really help it with hydration, electrolytes, and nutrition. For [00:07:00] me, I try and cut out as much inflammatory foods as possible when I'm sick. And when I'm rebuilding, when I'm not sick, in general, I try and cut back on all inflammatory foods and increase my anti-inflammatory foods.
For me, dairy is very inflammatory. Fried food's very inflammatory. I don't drink, but alcohol's very inflammatory. Anti-inflammatory, we're talking about fruits and vegetables. Now, we also need protein to rebuild. Our body needs more nutrition. So I invite you to give it that nutrition. And along with nutrition, we need extra rest, sleep.
Hopefully, if you've been sick, you're already sleeping more. But you also need extra rest. So when you're actually doing the workout, give yourself more rest during the workout and after the workout. We gotta recover. Our bodies need more time to rebuild. And then lastly, give Yourself grace. It can take time to get back into it.
You may feel like getting sick threw everything off for you. It can [00:08:00] really slow things down. It can knock you back a little bit. It can knock you back a lot, but getting sick is a part of life. So when we're looking at any sort of workout routine, anything we're doing for ourselves, we just need to give ourselves grace that we're human, we're gonna get colds, we're gonna get sick, and that means that we need to wrap our minds around the fact that we're not always gonna be building, building, building.
We're not always gonna be getting better and getting healthier. Sometimes we need rest. Sometimes we are gonna go the opposite direction, and that's okay. We just, when we're ready, when we're feeling up to it, when your body's ready, we need to get back out there, do what we can do, and build up to where we can build up to now.
Give yourself grace. And if you haven't integrated a consistent exercise, workout routine, or just movement into your life yet, I invite you to grab a free copy of my Healthy Living Guide. I have it linked in the show notes and in the YouTube [00:09:00] description, or you can go to www.athletewithasthma.com/healthy-living-guide to grab your free copy.
In this guide, I go through the three pillars of healthy living, ranging from movement to tracking to accountability, and just in a couple of minutes, you'll be able to see how these pillars fit into your life and start taking practical steps to integrating them into your daily life. I want this for you because what I've learned is that a consistent workout routine, a consistent exercise routine, empowers you and I to decrease all-cause mortality rates for ourselves by 35%.
This has been researched extensively, and Dr. Peter Attia talks about this in his book Outlive. I invite you to talk to your doctor about it and see how that fits into your goals and your life. I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to The Athlete With Asthma show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any [00:10:00] perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection, it's about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals. And if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible
