lundi 4 février 2013

Training After An Illness

By Tyron Thompson


Influenza can keep you away from your exercise program for weeks. You are likely eager to get into it, but there are some good reasons why you should not jump back into your routine full-force as quickly as you are feeling better. While exercising is sometimes good for the immune mechanism, intense workouts essentially suppress it. Your post-sickness body is fighting to get back strength and immunological regularity , pushing yourself hard right away can essentially prolong your recovery.

It is smart to attend three or a few days after you are feeling better to begin to work out again , anything beyond a walk could be too much to handle during this time. Waiting 1 or 2 days will give your immune system time to rest and recover.

Now you are feeling better and a few buffer days have gone by. Whether you are returning to the gymnasium or resuming a home exercise regimen, weight lifting or cardio training, it is important to keep in mind that you've been out of the game for a while. Even a week off from exercising could cause muscle loss and aerobic fitness decline. A paper entitled "The Management of Low Back Stiffness : A Complete Rehab Program," by Joel Press, MD, and Susan and Brad Sorosky, MDs, reports that muscle strength decreases by 1-3% each day of bed rest and that aerobic fitness level declines by twenty five percent over a 3-week period of bed rest. This paper can be discovered in PDF format online .

Your eagerness to get back to where you were pre-sickness should be tempered by the acceptance that this goal will take longer to achieve if you push yourself too hard initially. You risk injury or severe delayed onset muscle tenderness if you overtax your weakened muscles the 1st day back, both of which would put you off your routine for days or possibly, in case of injury, weeks to come. Pushing to hard could also weaken your freshly-reconstituted immunological response and increase your probability of becoming sick again ( remember, there are many hundreds of different viruses that cause colds and flues ).

How much is too much? A good guideline is to split your standard routine in each way for the first week or two. Exercise half as often, half as intensely and half so long as common. You are reintroducing your body to the difficulties of exercise, and this is best done slowly. Increase the length, frequency and power of workouts continuously. Take the following scenario as an example. Your usual routine involves 4 to 5 days each week of half-hour sessions.

You typically do fifteen minutes of moderate- to high-intensity cardio ( such as running ) and 15 minutes of strength building ( weight reps, core exercises and so on. ). After being sick, try two 15-minute sessions the 1st week back, doing 7.5 minutes of low- to moderate-intensity cardiovascular ( like brisk walking ) and 7.5 minutes of strength drilling with half your typical number of reps per exercise. If at any time you feel very exhausted, short of wind or dizzy, stop and rest a couple more days.

You'll get back to where you were before getting sick if you approach your return to exercise cautiously. Give your body the rest it needs before exerting yourself after having the flu and reintroduce your body to exercise slowly.




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