Let’s be honest, being sick sucks! It can take you off your feet, leave you feeling bad, lacking energy and completely unable to do the things that you would normally do. Being sick is even worse if you are the type of person who enjoys some exercise and regularly visits the gym. If you fall into this category then you can still exercise when you’re sick, although you need to do so in the right way. exercising when sick can help to restore some of your energy, strengthen the body to fight whatever it is that you are suffering from and ultimately put a smile on your face.
If you are feeling sick and want to exercise then here is what you should be doing.
Keeping it Low
It is important that you do not over exert yourself when exercising whilst sick, the last thing your want to do is put your body through any unnecessary pain. Once you start to exercise whilst sick you should stick to something that is low impact and that doesn’t require a great need of strength to perform, yoga for example is a great type of exercise o do when you are feeling ill. It is important to remember also that your body is going to be working extremely hard to fight off whatever illness or infection it is that you have and so your energy levels will not be high enough for any kind of intense work out.
Staying Indoors
Whilst it is important that you get plenty of air when you are not feeling good, the best way to exercise when sick really is in the comfort of your own home. There are a couple of reasons for this, the first is that if you don’t feel good whilst you are working out then you can easily sit down and rest at home. The second reason is that you may actually feel worse just by doing any kind of outdoors activity so if you really do want to keep exercising then you are going to be best off doing so indoors.
Recovery
When you are sick and you exercise you are going to have to build in a lot more recovery time than normal into your schedule. Your body is already super busy trying to battle your illness and asking it to then fix your muscles and joints is quite a big ask, for this reason you need to ensure that you are giving your body probably double the recovery time that you would usually give it.
The fact of the matter is that if you can summon up the energy to exercise when you are sick then you will end up feeling a whole lot better about yourself, you’ll feel stronger and have far more energy. After exercising you are likely to feel pretty bad and you need to make sure that you are keeping your body hydrated and eating well so that you can recover well.