By Nathan Kark, CPT, USAT Level 1
Co-founder/Coach, T4 Endurance

As triathletes with addictive personalities, we beat ourselves up for missing workoutseven when we get sick. So, we end up with a very important question to ask ourselves: Im feeling under the weather but I still want to get a few miles... in, should I put on those shoes or goggles and go for it? What a great question!

For full disclosure, I am personally an advocate for a VERY LOW INTENSITY, short duration workout when Im sick. I find that it improves my morale which, in turn, makes me feel much better. I tell other athletes the same, that if they feel up to a light workout, to go for it if they feel it will help.

Recently, I have been looking into the matter to validate my own opinions on working out while sick. What did I find? Should you work out when you are sick? Well, you really first have to figure out your symptoms and know if you just have a mild cold, allergies, the flu, or possibly something else. This is the standard disclaimer--go to your doctor if you are unsure. So really, the answer is: it depends.

I am going to take a bit leeway and assume that we are only talking about the little gray area of "kind of sick," the "un-descriptive not feeling well," when we talk about being sick and that the obvious violent flu, food poisoning, pneumonia, and other very obvious levels of sick are wrangled into something more than being just sick. So, if you just feel a little out of it and getting your workout in is your only concern, it is alright to say that your workout is quite safeas long as you do not have a fever.

However, if there are symptoms or signs of the flu, extreme tiredness, muscle aches, swollen lymph glands, vomiting, and stomach problems, then at least two days for every day you were sick will be needed for recovery before you continue with intense exercise again. Why? Because severe sickness is often a sign of something being significantly out of whack within your body! So what about someone who was sick for a whole week? Should they then take two whole weeks off from training? For the following three reasons, though it sounds severe, YES:

1. You were probably over training anyway - if your immune system was up to par you probably would not have been sick as long. Also, if you jump back into heavy training you will be very likely to have a repeat or two and miss well more than 3 weeks, but with actual sick days.

2. If you happened to just be very sick and weren't simply over trained your immune system is not functioning properly and training would grind it down even further. Your immune system just ran it's own ironman event and it needs time to recover from its own sort of workout. Just like an injury, you want to come back stronger than before so let your body heal.

3. You are not going to lose that much fitness. Really, it will be OK. If you don't follow my advice and start training anyway, you will have a noticeable decrease in performance and fitness. It is expected and normal, but guess what? You'll slowly pick it up and be back to normal in about two weeks or so. You will probably even be in a BETTER place than you would have been while training since you took time to let your body heal. As our Nutrition Coach, Jason, would say, Its hay in the barn buddy! Hes absolutely correct.


In sum, when you are sick, stay active if you can but be weary that you do not have something more severe happening such as overtraining. As always, if you are unsure, seek proper medical attention.