Podcast - 5 Reasons you should workout when you are sick
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[00:00:00] I hate being sick along with feeling terrible, food not tasting as good as it can because of being nasally, the added congestion, sneezing, coughing, just not feeling good overall. It used to prevent me from working out. So, I'd be training for something, at that point, training for long distance bike rides, or maybe even practicing for a soccer game.
It used to prevent me from doing these things. And, to be fair, if a sickness is more severe, I, to this day, am very mindful about what I do. But what I've figured out over the years is there is actually a number of benefits to [00:01:00] working out, to exercising when you're sick. And now, when I get sick, I use it as an opportunity to harness the power of working out to actually help me feel better.
get over my sickness faster. So today I'm going to share with you my five reasons why you should work out when you're sick.
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 100 K 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 [00:02:00] be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals, despite limitations, let's get started.
Now before we get into it, we need to really define different types of sickness or illness. Okay, now I'm not a doctor, I'm not a health care professional. So everything I'm sharing with you today in this episode comes from my own experience and you need to consult with a health care professional before integrating any of this into your life.
I have a disclaimer written in the show notes and linked in the description below this video if you are watching this on YouTube.
Now, we need to define how sick we are. are you? How sick do you feel? Because [00:03:00] there's a big difference between a mild illness like a cold and a extreme illness, okay? And that's why with everything that I'm going to share with you today, we really need to know the difference between how severe is your sickness, is your illness.
Because the more severe ~your sickness, ~your illness, the ~much, ~greater an impact working out and exercise is going to have on that. And it's not always going to be positive. ~Okay. So very, ~so you need to be mindful of where you fall on the spectrum. Are you just a little bit sick with ~this, ~the common cold, ~or are you ~Or are you feeling like you're on the other end of the spectrum with pneumonia or something much more severe,
so once we figure out how sick you actually are and you can really do that by consulting with your health care professional That's probably the best way to figure this out there are numerous benefits of working out while you're [00:04:00] sick. The first one is, working out can actually boost your immune function.
Now ~yet again, ~this is going to be with mild illnesses only, but I can't tell you the number of times that I have felt sick or even the urge to work out. early stages of being sick. And instead of saying, you know what, I'm going to sit on the couch today and skip my workout. I have gone out and actually done my workout.
Now I've adjusted it. Okay. So instead of going after the 10, 15 or 20 mile run, I have adjusted it down to a three mile run, a five mile run. And just seeing how I feel before really going all out. I've done this so many times where I'll start feeling the congestion come on and then I'll jump on the Peloton and do a 15 to 30 minute workout and I feel amazing after,
and the reason why is because moderate exercise can actually increase the [00:05:00] circulation of immune cells in your body. This is the natural killer cells and the T cells within your body that help fight off infections. So you can actually improve how your body fights off these mild illnesses, these mild sicknesses by integrating working out into your routine.
of getting over a illness. Okay.
Now, an extreme example ~with this ~from my own ~personal ~experience ~is I,~ is I was in the thick of training for my hundred K race last year. And, uh, I think it was in July or maybe it was early August, I started feeling sick. And I was extremely upset because I was starting to really get close to my race. I was about eight weeks out from my race.
And I didn't want my illness, my sickness, to impact my training. So what did I do?~ Well, at the time~ Well, at this point in my life, [00:06:00] I am very attuned and mindful with how my body feels. So I can tell, even before a sickness gets pretty bad, that it's coming on. And in those early stages, I still feel very good with energy and my ability to work out while I'm sick isn't impaired.
So I went and I worked out. I did a three mile run and I felt a lot better afterwards and ~I ~continued doing this throughout the week. So while I decreased the amount of mileage I was scheduled to do that week, I think I was scheduled to do 50 to 60 miles that week and ~I ~cut it down to the 30 to 35 mile range.
I still train that week. Well, ultimately I found out. Because a friend of mine who I was pretty sure I got sick from his significant other tested positive for COVID. And my significant other also came down with some symptoms [00:07:00] and she tested positive for COVID. So we were pretty sure that what I had was COVID.
Now mind you, I have been vaccinated multiple times and it was the second time that I got COVID. All right. And I have a lot of other factors in my life going for me to fight these illnesses. Okay. So I have a ~very, ~very powerful diet.
I've cut out a lot of inflammatory foods and substances from my life, and I ingest tons of anti inflammatory and anti oxidant drugs. rich foods. Okay. And when I get sick, I go even more extreme. I don't even think about sugar, right? I don't go anywhere near alcohol. I stay away from the fried foods. Okay.
So it wasn't just the fact that I was working out that allowed me to get through this bout of COVID pretty unscathed. [00:08:00] It was the combination of all these things.
The point is you need to assess how severe your sickness is ~and it can be, and this is an individual question. ~A common cold could be more severe with you than it is with me. So you really need to look at this scale and give yourself a rating of how you feel and consult with your healthcare professional to really see how severe your sickness is.
But in this case, last summer when I was training, working out helped me get over COVID faster and really helped me actually not get to the point where I had, ~uh, ~the really high temperature symptoms. Okay. I didn't really have a fever throughout this experience. If you have a fever going into working out, you really got to be careful cause you're going to bring your body temperature up with working out too.
~So that's why you really got to be careful. ~So that's why you really need to be mindful when integrating working out into your life when you're sick. ~But from a basic perspective, it. will, ~but from a basic perspective, [00:09:00] working out does technically boost your immune function because it increases the circulation of immune cells in your body.
Okay. So the second reason why you should work out when you are sick is because it supports your recovery through increased circulation. When you work out even light exercise. You are actually increasing the blood flow in your body, ~allowing yourself to ~allowing your body to deliver nutrients and oxygen more effectively to your tissues to support healing. One thing that I experienced when I'm sick is asthma really only hits me at this point in my life. When I'm sick, it will also hit me when it's cold outside and I'm exercising, but. Typically, I never use my inhaler unless I'm sick. And almost every time I get sick, I will at least use my inhaler once.
Like last summer, when I had that bout of COVID, I [00:10:00] did use my inhaler while training and ~just ~even when I was sitting on the couch recovering. The point is when you increase the blood flow in your body, you're empowering your body to send the nutrients, to send the oxygen, to support your body in a time when it's fighting off illness. This is why, for me, whenever I'm sick and I work out, my body just feels better. It feels cleansed. It feels like it has more nutrients in it, opposed to when I'm just sitting on the couch. So a lot of times, when I feel sick, I'll work out earlier in the day. To really wake up my body, to really make myself feel better because of the benefits I get.
And this is one of those benefits. Now along with that, I personally feel like when I'm congested, when I'm sick, one of the best ways for me to [00:11:00] overcome that congestion is by working out. And that is my third reason why you should work out when you're sick, because it does tend to relieve nasal congestion, at least temporarily.
Okay. Exercise will temporarily open up your nasal passages, improving airflow and helping with mild congestion. Now, if your congestion is more extreme, you probably aren't going to feel as much benefit from this. But I'll tell you this, every time I get sick, I crave going to yoga classes.
Now, depending on how sick I am and how long it's been since my symptoms came on, I try and be mindful of not giving other people the sickness that I have by going to a group yoga class. But I'll tell you this, once I start feeling a little bit better and I'm still congested and I'm more aware of I'm probably not as contagious or contagious at all, going to a hot [00:12:00] yoga class is the best thing ever.
Cause not only does the heat and the humidity help open up my pores to really detoxify my body even more, the humidity helps open up my nasal pathways, helps open up my lungs. As someone that has asthma, humidity has the added impact of opening up my lungs when I'm sick and just in general.
And when you add a workout on top of it. It can really clean me out when I am feeling under the weather. ~So I love, ~so one of my go to workouts when I'm feeling sick, once I feel like I'm not contagious anymore, is going to a group yoga class, and specifically hot yoga. I do get similar benefits when I go take a run.
Okay. Well, I'll go out there and I'll take a run and I'm assessing how I feel because I want to make sure that I don't push myself too much. But once I assess, Hey, I [00:13:00] feel pretty good. What I'll do is I'll actually integrate interval training into my runs. Okay. And when I integrate that interval training into my workout for the day, maybe 30 seconds or a minute, it really opens up my nasal pathways and helps me breathe even.
So I highly recommend that you work out while you are sick to get some of that natural release in your congestion instead of having to take some sort of over the counter drug, which could help you in the short term, but could have an impact in the long term. Remember to check with your doctor though, before integrating this into your recovery routine.
when you feel sick.
Hey friend, I wanted to take a moment to ask you a quick question. Are you struggling to lose weight [00:14:00] due to your asthma? If so, I get it. I used to run marathons and still kept gaining weight. It wasn't until I learned about the three pillars of healthy living that everything changed.
So I put together a healthy living guide that you can access absolutely free by clicking the link in the description. This guide shares these amazing three pillars of healthy living that you can easily integrate into your life to start losing weight and live healthier today. Click the link in the description or go to Athlete with asthma dot com forward slash healthy dash living [00:15:00] dash guide to grab your free copy.
Now, let's get back to the rest of the show.
Next, the fourth reason why you should work out when you're sick is because when you work out, you decrease stress hormones. Now this is important just in your day to day life. This is a good reason for you to work out in general, but I'll tell you this, after I have a hard day of work or I'm just stressed about something in life, running brings me peace.
And it helps me not only reduce levels of cortisol in my body, which is a stress hormone that can impair a lot of things, but when you're sick, it can actually impair your immune function, especially if it's elevated for long periods of time. Have you ever noticed that when you are not feeling great mentally and you're stressed out about something, you [00:16:00] take longer to actually get over being sick.
You also may find that you get sick more often. This is why working out can really help you in your life. Not only help you get over a sickness, but help prevent you from getting sick in general because of all the benefits I'm talking about today, but. Also by decreasing the stress hormones in your body, you're actually improving your body's ability to deal with a lot of things.
Well, back to my example, when I feel stressed out about whatever, right, and this could be a lot of different things. And I'm an entrepreneur. I run two different businesses. This one athlete with asthma and my other business e learning partners. I also teach yoga. I also have an amazing family, okay? And we have different stressors that can really hit us at any time.
When I start feeling stressed, my go to solution is working [00:17:00] out, and I find that, When I'm stressed, and when I'm sick, these things start compounding. Okay, because you're stressed because of whatever, and then you get more stressed because you're sick, because you're like, oh, I gotta do all these things, or I have all these things to deal with, but I'm already stressed.
I'm sick, so now I'm more stressed about being sick. The crazy thing is for me, the best solution is to take a pause from whatever the thing is that I'm stressed about to take a pause from, okay, I'm feeling sick and to just go out and work out. And then I get a number of benefits that I've already talked about in addition to driving those stress hormones down, increasing the endorphins in my body, so actually creating endorphins that elevate my mood and then I not only feel better physically.
from my sickness when I'm starting to mentally feel better and deal with the [00:18:00] stress as well. So this might be the number one reason why I work out in general in life, but definitely when I'm sick. Because when the stress hormones decrease, your immune function increases, you're not only going to be less stressed, your body's going to have the aptitude to fight off illness and sickness even.
better. Okay, my fifth reason why you should work out when you're sick is it improves sleep quality. This is a great reason to work out in general. I'll tell you this, every Wednesday, okay, every Wednesday I teach two yoga classes. I also record a yoga class that I post on my YouTube channel. So if you're listening to this as a podcast and you want a yoga class or a workout to help you in your life.
I highly recommend you go to my YouTube channel, athlete with asthma and check out my various yoga classes that I [00:19:00] create for athletes with asthma and just runners and athletes in general. So on Wednesdays, I teach two classes, I record a class, and even a lot of times I will throw a run in, especially because when I'm training for something, like right now I'm training for a 12 hour endurance run, where I'm going to be running more than a hundred kilometers in 12 hours, I need to get my miles in.
So that's four runs. workouts in one day. Technically, when I teach, I don't do the whole workout. I do about 10 to 20 percent of the workout, but I'm doing a lot of physical activity between teaching those two classes, recording myself, do an entire class and running. Well, I sleep the best on Wednesday nights because exercise is shown to improve sleep quality.
Now I sleep pretty good every night because I exercise almost every day. I exercise six days a week and take one day [00:20:00] a week off during training because that's just part of my training protocol because you need to rest your body in order to get the full benefits and in order to make sure ~that ~you don't get But I definitely feel The added benefit of all the movement I'm doing on Wednesdays.
So, how does this help us when we are feeling under the weather or when we are sick? Well, when you sleep better, When you improve the quality of your sleep, you are empowering your body for stronger immune recovery and overall well being when you're sick.
When you sleep better, your body is able to recover. Amazing things happen when we are asleep. Our immune systems work must more efficiently and effectively. So many amazing processes occur when we improve our sleep quality. And by improving your sleep quality, you are going to improve your overall health as well. And you're going to give yourself a [00:21:00] leg up in preventing severe diseases that can hit us later in life. ~Okay. ~And if you want to learn more about that, I highly recommend you check out the book Outlive by M.
D. Peter Atiyah and I have it linked in the show notes and if you're watching this on YouTube in the YouTube description below
Okay, so those are my five top reasons why you should consider working out when you're sick, And I have one bonus reason for you. And this is maintaining your fitness level and routine.
One of the things that happened to me earlier on in my life, when I didn't used to work out when I was sick, is I'd be Doing so well training for a race. Okay. Be training for the copper triangle. Okay. An 80 mile race throughout the mountains of Colorado. And I'd be training for it. Okay. And I'd be doing so well.
I'd be getting my miles in every [00:22:00] week, I'd be feeling good, and then I would get sick. And getting sick would completely throw off my training, because I would stop jumping on the bike. I would stop working out for three to five days, even a week. But we all know that it's not just a week that we stop working out.
Even if we only feel sick for three to five days, maybe a week, what I would have happen Because I'd be training, specifically I remember training for the Copper Triangle the first time I did it. And I was doing really well with my training.
Then I got sick, and I felt sick for about five days. So I didn't work out for five days. Well, on day six, even though I felt better, I still didn't work out. On day seven, I felt even better, I still didn't work out. On day eight, day nine, day ten, I I felt 100 percent and I still didn't work out. It wasn't until two weeks from the beginning of getting sick to feeling better [00:23:00] that I started working out again.
So it didn't just throw off my routine while I was sick. It threw off my routine from when I was sick and then adding another week. This is one of the things when I've gotten sick and I stop working out, it doesn't just throw me off for when I'm sick.
It throws me off getting back into working out once I feel better. So this is why to this day when I'm sick, I try to work out in some capacity while I'm sick. Now, if I'm feeling really bad, Right? So the scale of, this isn't that bad of a sickness to, I feel incredibly sick. This might be pneumonia.
This is real bad. I, no matter where I am on this range, when I'm assessing it, if I'm closer to the really severe side of this, then maybe I'll just take a short walk, okay? But I make sure that I am, first of all, assessing how bad I feel and [00:24:00] consulting my healthcare professional if I do feel really bad to make sure it's okay that I work out, at least walking or doing some sort of movement.
But I try and keep my routine in some degree or another. And, like I said previously in this episode, I always try and reign it in. But I continue the routine. And by doing this, maybe three to five days, I really do feel sick. And I am doing maybe just one or two miles of running a day instead of five to 10.
But once I get out of that and I get to day six, day seven, I'm back up and running like I was before I was sick. So. By working out when you're sick, you can really maintain your fitness and your routines, And this is also just going to make you feel better about any races you have coming up. Last year, when I got COVID during the summer, leading up to my a hundred K race, I fell sick for about five days and I took it easier [00:25:00] during those five days. But after those five days, I was back up and running. I didn't miss a beat with my training. And I ultimately ended up winning that a hundred K race.
So even though I was upset, I'm like, I'm sick. This sucks. It didn't end up impacting me in how I performed in race. Now I have another bonus I want to share with you. And it is my three pillars of healthy living guide. And what I've done is I have packaged my three pillars of healthy living that I've learned that have not only helped me lose 40 pounds and keep it off, but have helped me live a much healthier life, which I believe has helped me actually prevent and avoid getting sick as much as I used to these three pillars of healthy living are movement, which tracking and accountability.
And what I've done is I've created this guide and package them together into a process that you can [00:26:00] easily start integrating into your life today. I've linked this guide in the show notes and in the YouTube description below this video, you can also go to www.
athletewithasthma. com forward slash healthy. Healthy. Dash living dash guide to grab your copy today. I highly recommend that you grab your copy because it's going to take you less than two or three minutes to read it. And you're going to be able to start integrating it into your life today. So definitely go grab your copy and 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 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 [00:27:00] 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.
